Regev/Painting the Mediterranean, 6. Phoenician Industrial Networks

Pottery - Wine - Perfumed Oils and Medicines - Salted Fish and Fish Sauce Large-scale Phoenician trade involved industrial activity that resulted in a large variety of products for long-distance global operations; nevertheless, the discussion presented here is selective and focuses on specific items of the Phoenician trade network. It does not include the trade in timber and metals, two perishable commodities that appear to have composed the major volume of Phoenician commercial traffic. Trade in both commodities is mentioned in the remaining chapters dealing with trade-nets when relevant to the specific area under discussion. Both timber and metals are difficult to track in archaeological records, although advancing techniques in chemical analysis of metal composition are permitting an identification of ore sources.Instead, the evidence presented here relates to large-scale operations that involved industrial activity initiated and organized for long-distance trade in a global pattern. The trade networks examined are those that focused predominantly on wine, salted fish, perfumed oils, and Terra Sigillata fine-ware pottery. Trade in these products demanded elaborate coordination, trading to distant locations, and was, by its nature, a long-lasting phenomenon. Each of these networks reveals another angle of Canaanite-Phoenician history and shines a different light on various aspects of their cultural and economic connections with neighboring peoples and others further away.