The Baltic Trade 207
Furthermore the research on Baltic trade is mostly concentrated on the
Lubeckian point of view. This is understandable with regard to the exceptional
situation in the archives of Lübeck during the post-war years, but this dis-
torts the picture. There are, beside the groundbreaking doctoral dissertation
from Angela Huang from 2013,37 for example missing analyses of the inland
trade routes of the Baltic and their connection to and interaction with the
international trade;38 and the same can be said of the relationship of inland-
towns to the international trade at and along the Baltic. We know that the city
of Breslau in Silesia was connected to the west by its trade via the Oder and
the Baltic Sea,39 but what about Craków, Lviv, Leipzig or Berlin? This and many
other questions remain unanswered.
In summary, one can say that modern research about the Hanseatic trade in
the Baltic is in its fledgling stages. Since 1989, new sources of information have
arrived which are now stimulating new research.
Products of the Hanseatic Trade in the Baltic
Amber
One of the oldest Baltic products with international fame is amber, which was
mentioned in the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Old Testament,40 as well as the
writings of Dionysius Halicarnassus and Tacitus, who reported the export of
37 Angela Huang, Die Textilien des Hanseraums. Produktion und Distribution einer spät-
mittelalterlichen Fernhandelsware (Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen, Faculty of
Humanities 2013).
38 See the first attemps of Gerhard Theuerkauf, “Binnen- und Seehandel zur Hansezeit am
mecklenburgischen Beispiel.” in Zwischen Lübeck und Novgorod. Wirtschaft, Politik und
Kultur im Ostseeraum vom frühen Mittelalter bis ins 20. Jahrhundert, Norbert Angermann
zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. Ortwin Pelc and Gertrud Pickhan (Lüneburg: Inst. Nordostdt.
Kulturwerk, 1996), 179–189.
39 Krzysztof Wachowski and Jacek Wittkowski, “Wrocław wobec Hanzy.” Archaeologia
Polski xlviii, 1–2, (2003), 201–221; Hugo Weczerka, “Die Südostbeziehungen der
Hanse.” In Die Hanse und der deutsche Osten, ed. Norbert Angermann (Lüneburg: Verlag
Nordostdeutsches Kulturwerk, 1990), 117–132.
40 Joan Markley Todd, “Baltic Amber in the ancient Near East: A preliminary investigation,”
Journal of Baltic Studies 16 (1981/1985), 292–301.