Premodern Trade in World History - Richard L. Smith

more akin to that of ambassador than peddler, and in the sources the words for“envoy”and“merchant’are often used interchangeably ...

After a brief period of invasion and disorganization, the Akkadian Empire was replaced by a state centering on the Sumerian city ...

Mesopotamia. The best guess is that it came from sites in Afghanistan and possibly Iran. Mesopotamia did produce the other Assyr ...

in Anatolian-style houses, used Anatolian utensils and pottery, and could take local wives. Central to the Old Assyrian–Cappadoc ...

demands of the elites. The impact of trade began to reach farther down the social ladder. Mesopotamian trade was also spreading ...

were middlemen although it is uncertain how proactive they were. In one scenario Dilmun was a neutral meeting ground where forei ...

The Harappans traded with each other locally and regionally on an extensive basis through an elaborate internal network. The imp ...

The great enigma of Harappan foreign trade is not exports but imports. In some way the Mesopotamians had to pay for those carnel ...

whereas donkey caravans carried less than ships, they also represented less capital investment. Private ventures would tend to b ...

for both the most sought after among precious stones was not diamonds, rubies, sapphires, or emeralds; it was lapis lazuli. Toda ...

fourth millennium. In the late fourth this dominance began to shift to southern Mesopotamia, signaling the economic and politica ...

although its location does not match the description in the epics. For lapis carried across the northern route, a similar center ...

Chapter 4 Land of gold If Mesopotamia boasts the earliest civilization, the lower Nile River valley is credited with being secon ...

external routes were a major factor leading to the unification of Egypt. From the beginning of the pharaonic period, long-distan ...

Mesopotamian and even Iranian cultural influences appear in Upper Egypt that are not found in Lower Egypt. However, there is no ...

number of donkeys. The Nubians and the Kushites further up the Nile were famous for their herds of cattle, which brought high pr ...

they are unspecified except for a dancing dwarf (sometimes translated as pygmy), which especially pleased the pharaoh. Harkhuf’s ...

crossroads for trade coming from the interior of Africa, the western and southern coasts of Arabia, and points in the Indian Oce ...

Hatshepsut’s expedition reestablished contact with Punt that lasted several centuries to the reign of Ramses III. Trade remained ...

Cyprus, which became the great suppliers of copper in this part of the world in the mid- to late second millennium. Ugarit could ...