This exciting new volume examines the development of market performance from Antiquity until the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. Efficient market structures are agreed by most economists to serve as evidence of economic prosperity, and to be prerequisites for further economic growth. However, this is the first study to examine market performance as a whole, over such a large time period. Presenting a hitherto unknown and inaccessible corpus of data from ancient Babylonia, this international set of contributors are for the first time able to offer an in-depth study of market performance over a period of 2,500 years. The contributions focus on the market of staple crops, as they were crucial goods in these societies. Over this entire period, all papers provide a similar conceptual and methodological framework resting on a common definition of market performance combined with qualitative and quantitative analyses resting on new and improved price data. In this way, the book is able to combine analysis of the Babylonian period with similar work on the Roman, Early-and Late Medieval and Early Modern period. Bringing together input from assyriologists, ancient historians, economic historians and economists, this volume will be crucial reading for all those with an interest in ancient history, economic history and economics.
ELECTRUM has been published since 1997 by the Department of Ancient History at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow as a collection of papers and monographs. Publishes scholarly papers embodying studies in history and culture of Greece, Rome and Near East from the beginning of the First Millennium BC to about AD 400. Contributions are written in English, German, French and Italian.
A presentation of the various indigenous coin issues that circulated in Eastern Arabia during the pre-Islamic era as attested in five private collections studied by the author. The basis for the classification is a corpus of 529 coins selected from those collections for publication here. Geographically, the coins came from two distinct regions which today comprise the Eastern Province of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Emirate of Umm al-Qaiwain in the United Arab Emirates. Foreign issues were rare in these areas, although a handful of Sasanian, Roman, Seleucid, Greek, Phoenician, Nabataean, Elymaean, Parthian and Sabaean coins have been attested to in the collections that form the basis of this work.
This study of ancient Roman shipping and trade across continents reveals the Roman Empire’s far-reaching impact in the ancient world. In ancient times, large fleets of Roman merchant ships set sail from Egypt on voyages across the Indian Ocean. They sailed from Roman ports on the Red Sea to distant kingdoms on the east coast of Africa and southern Arabia. Many continued their voyages across the ocean to trade with the rich kingdoms of ancient India. Along these routes, the Roman Empire traded bullion for valuable goods, including exotic African products, Arabian incense, and eastern spices. This book examines Roman commerce with Indian kingdoms from the Indus region to the Tamil lands. It investigates contacts between the Roman Empire and powerful African kingdoms, including the Nilotic regime that ruled Meroe and the rising Axumite Realm. Further chapters explore Roman dealings with the Arab kingdoms of southern Arabia, including the Saba-Himyarites and the Hadramaut Regime, which sent caravans along the incense trail to the ancient rock-carved city of Petra. The first book to bring these subjects together in a single comprehensive study, The Roman Empire and the Indian Ocean reveals Rome’s impact on the ancient world and explains how international trade funded the legions that maintained imperial rule.