Trade at the Sea of the Rising Sun: Neo-Elamite commercial involvement in the Persian Gulf network (1000-525 BC)

Since the 3rd millennium BC, the Persian Gulf has been a key international trade route both connecting the civilisations around it, such as Elam, Mesopotamia, Dilmun and Magan, and orienting these societies towards the Indian Ocean.

The lack of diversity in natural resources on both sides of the Gulf motivated early Middle Eastern states to explore maritime trade in order to obtain and exchange raw materials and finished products (e.g. copper, timber, textiles).

Especially, littoral societies on the shores of the Gulf shared a maritime culture based on long-distance trade, and were part of an interlinked system that included agricultural villages and oases that sustained the caravan trade.

In order to achieve a deeper understanding of interregional contacts between Elam, Mesopotamia and Eastern Arabia, one requires a profound knowledge of the political climate promoting commercial exchange, the maritime and overland trading itineraries, the import and export products, and the people involved in these commercial networks.

TRADElam aims to study the commercial relations and trading networks in the Gulf region during the 1st half of the 1st millennium BC.

While there is abundant maritime traffic recorded for the 3rd-2nd millennium BC, traces of Gulf commerce become scarce in the early 1st millennium BC.

The first part of the project will therefore create a general overview of the commercial networks between Elam, Eastern Arabia and Mesopotamia during the 1st half of the 1st millennium BC.

To achieve this, one will study the maritime and overland trade routes and identify the natural resources as well as the import and export products of each region. The second part will focus on the role of the indigenous coastal communities involved in these commercial relations.