| Abstract |
"Anyone fortunate enough to have seen the sun set at Kommos in southern Crete will have heard the calls and glimpsed the shadows: proud ships glide into the bay, escorted by songs and steered by men with salt-encrusted faces, confident, hardy, and satisfied. Much like four thousand years ago, when Kommos was a way station for mariners who had made the sea their home and the horizon their destination. They were no cause for alarm, these men from Syria, Egypt, Anatolia, and the Levant. Their ships, not much smaller than the Santa Maria of Columbus, were built in Ugarit in northern Syria, one of the most important bronze age entrepôts. The captains who called at Crete probably hailed from there, too. Up to 8000 people lived in the capital of the kingdom of Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra on the Syrian Coast, three kilometres from the sea), a polyglot society with an excellent harbour (Minet el-Beida) and heavily timbered forests in the nearby hills. Like other city-kingdoms in the Levant, such as Tell Kazel in Amurru, Byblos, Beirut, and Tell Abu Hawam, it had dedicated itself to the sea and to maritime trade. We are unsure exactly how goods were bought and circulated. Clay tablets found in the palace archive in Ugarit can be weighed up against evidence from other kingdoms, but no clear picture emerges. What cannot be doubted, not just in Ugarit, is the dominant role played by the royal palace in initiating and organising the transregional exchange of goods and merchandise. The king secured his power and prestige not just by protecting his land from attack but also by providing himself and his subjects with goods, raw materials, and foodstuffs in a world permanently threatened by natural catastrophe. The ability to source, administer, process, and distribute these goods formed the basis of the palace economy"-- Provided by publisher. |
