The development of maritime exchange in the Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean

This contribution examines the extensive international maritime exchange networks that developed in the Eastern Mediterranean during the late Bronze Age (1550–1180 BC). It shows how the details of these networks that are indicated by surviving textual sources, including documents from the archives of Egyptian, Hittite, Ugaritic and Babylonian rulers, can be supplemented by an ever-increasing body of archaeological evidence to reveal a wide range of raw materials, trade goods and luxury items being shipped between the élites of the Eastern Mediterranean in this period.