Routes and Metals

Many studies of ancient trade are concerned with defining the routes by which prized commodities flowed between regions. The history of the Ancient Near East could be viewed in terms of the constant competition and cooperation to attain resources that were distributed unequally throughout the region. Some of these were natural raw materials, and others were the work of skilled artisans in palaces. Trade routes were like water, following paths of least resistance to their destinations. The main routes went up the Euphrates and Tigris and then through mountain passes, tributary valleys, and wadis running east and west.

Mesopotamia was rich in fish, reeds, bitumen (an all-purpose petroleum product used for gluing, sealing, and coating), various animal products, and mud, but had little of a luxurious or ostentatious quality. With urbanism came increased needs for payments and the need to display one’s status prominently in ornate households. From Syria-Palestine one could obtain olive oil, wine, ivory (both hippopotamus and elephant), purple dye, glass, and building woods like cedar, fir, and cypress. Some, probably not all, of the silver came from Anatolia. The gulf trade brought in exotic shells, copper from Oman, and exotic goods from the Indus River valley. From somewhere across the Zagros, perhaps in Afghanistan, came tin, lapis lazuli, and other precious stones. Egypt seems to have had more gold than other regions, and exotic woods and animals came from Africa.

The role of copper in the major trading networks of the Bronze Age seems especially crucial. After the mid-second millennium the gulf trade was usurped by an influx of Cypriot copper. Indeed the geopolitics of the later second millennium and early first millennium hardly makes sense without considering how surrounding empires competed for access to Cypriot copper and Levantine timber. At some point early in the first millennium iron began replacing copper in key weapon and tool industries, causing another major shift in the networks that left Cyprus more on the economic periphery.