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Fine Tuning: An Analysis Of Bronze Age Potmarks As Clues To Maritime Trade, Nicolle E. Hirschfeld

Classical Studies Faculty Research

One of many puzzling questions facing archaeologists working in the eastern Mediterranean deals with the organization of trade during the Late Bronze Age (LBA). This is the time of the New Kingdom-the period of Tutankhamun and Ramses—in Egypt, the Hittite empire in Anatolia and parts of the Near East, and the age of the heroes of the Trojan war. Palace archives, treaties inscribed on public monuments, and murals painted on walls testify to extensive economic ties between these powers. Archaeological excavations also provide a glimpse of the types and quantities of trade-items and their distribution. These sources give some indication …