Traders in the ancient mediterranean

Traders in the Ancient Mediterranean presents a framework on which to hang ancient Mediterranean buying, selling, and transporting of goods. In five focused chapters, each written by a field expert, Traders in the Ancient Mediterranean offers a diachronic analysis of the ancient Mediterranean trader from the Late Bronze Age (1500-1100 BCE) through the Roman Imperial period (27 BCE-400 CE). The book focuses on local traditions, embedded historical context and socio-political goals of traders as individual actors, to provide an analysis of the impact of trade on ancient Mediterranean life beyond the traditional boundaries of the economy. As a result, two main types of behavior are analyzed, inter-regional and regional. The political and social developments of the Late Bronze Age and the Hellenistic and Roman periods, characterized by the rise of large multi-regional empires such as Assyria, Babylon, New Kingdom Egypt, Seleucid Syria and Ptolemaic Egypt, facilitated increased volume and demand for long-distance, extra-mural trade. Alternatively, the regionalism of Early Iron Age communities such as the Greek, Etruscan and Phoenician city-states tended to encourage focused exchange ont