early trade

From the Upper Paleolithic onward various items such as pottery or stone objects were moved over long distances offshore from South East Anatolia to the left bank of the Euphrates and the Levant including Byblos. Obsidian was heavily traded and was found in form of bladelets made by the pressure-flaking technique mostly coming from Central Anatolia. Obsidian were diffused over very long distances reaching more than 900 km and was used for the tools/weapons industry. Flint and lapis lazuli in the form of raw material were also very much traded. Trade of all these materials is to be regarded as a large-scale. 

 Byblos played a major role in the trade between Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Cyprus, Crete and Egypt called the "Byblos Run". Since the first dynasty in Egypt, Byblos had an exceptional position for Egypt for providing it with the Cedar Wood from the mountains in the back of Byblos, for the construction of ships and timber used for the building of temples and houses and the Pharaohs sarcophagus. In return ships from Byblos brought back from Egypt Gold for the fabrication of jewelry and for the decoration of temples, ivory, perfumes and especially papyrus where the name Byblos became associated with the writing of books.

 By 3000 b.c, Byblos, then known as Gubia, became the key port city on the Levantine coast (also called Canaan). With the establishment of the "Byblos Run", constant trade between, Asia Minor in particular the rapid growing land empire in Mesopotamia, Anatolia and the Old Kingdom in Egypt made of Byblos a thriving commercial center and a flourishing wealthy city state.

 The "Byblos Ships" followed a counter clockwise maritime route. The ships moved goods from Egypt to Byblos, and from Cyprus, Anatolia, Crete, the Aegean Islands and Greece mainland  back to the African coast and Egypt. Six days of coastal hugging from the Nile Delta would bring a ship to Byblos. The quantities transported aboard the ships were dispatched over many cities and would require a very complex system of local distribution system. The ships used to go in convoys sometimes reaching up to 40 to 70 ships. By the second millennium b.c, the ships were very large comparable to modern freighters and could reach up to 100 feet. Some ships could carry the equivalent of many donkey caravans and the transported goods on a ship could go up to 450 tons. Some of the cargo was on official consignment and some are a private enterprise.

The main source of Copper was Cyprus. The ingots of copper became so important in the second millennium. Phoenicians developed complex trade networks to transport and exchange copper in big volume that was the most important component to make tools and weapons and luxury goods. Copper was traded in form of Copper ingots. Chemical analyses have shown that oxide ingots were made of highly pure copper usually 98 to 99% copper and impurities in smelted copper were removed by roasting and remelting. Evidence for Organized Metalworking of Copper, Bronze and Tin in Byblos. On the shipwrecks theUluburun, copper is the largest and heaviest of object tonnage wise in the cargo. 

The Akkadian words for jar refer to amphorae that carried mostly olive oil and wine. Amphorae were generic containers were sealed and labeled to identify contents. The Uluburun shipwreck had a large shipment of terebinth resin in jars. The term for this jar was kadu and had a standard liquid measure of around 22 litres. On the Uluburun ship jars fall into three general size groups with the smallest jar representing an average capacity of 6.7 litres the medium about about twice that volume and the largest some 26 liters. Kadu remains the near-exclusive container recorded in transactions of vinegar olives honey and olive oil and wine. The jars are about 55cm high. Some jars found had stamped clay labels mentioning product and producer. It is said that the Uluburun ship went down with as much as one metric ton of resin in jars making the resin cargo the second bulkiest after the 11 tons of copper and tin. There were on the ship 5 tons of jarred cargo. The total shipment may be worth up to 7000 silver shekels. Half a ton of resin in jars was worth 11.5 shekels of silver. In Late Bronze Age  a sheep cost one shekel and a horse 35 shekels so the resin or wine was worth maybe a dozen sheep or part of a horse.  

Seals primarily indicate ownership and claim indicating obligation in a contractual sense and witnessing and officiating. Seals were used for the control over goods either in manufacturing or possession or identity. Texts show the importance of seals in conducting business in earlier times. Seals are found in great numbers in residential or private contexts. The cylinder was the predominant type of seals but also scarabs and rings. Seals were used by local elites merchants and agents  and most prominent entrepreneurs. Seal iconography was chosen freely. In private business sealing was done on commercial documents. Precious goods were sealed in chests. Goods were stored in sealed storerooms. Also found some practice of the sealing of doors. Sealing was the most frequently recorded legal procedure at the time.

Agricultural products were weighed and prices were expressed as weight in silver.  Prices were sometimes stated in weights of  metals but mostly silver. The balance-pan scale was in use and sets of stone or metal  were used as weights. Pierced weights were discovered on the Uluburun shipwreck. Biblical references mention the practice of weighing. Texts mention Priestly authority showing concerns for accurate measuring of votive offerings and the control of standards. Weights start progressively from grain to shekels to minas and talents. For example a weighing standard is 40 shekel per mina,  or the Mesopotamian sexagesimal standard of 60 shekels per mina. Phoenician systems had bigger shekels than those of the Mesopotamian system. Roughly 10 shekels are equivalent to 1 Egyptian dbn.

Tablet labels were flattened truncated cone-shaped clay pieces, sealed and bearing written information in syllabic and alphabetic scripts about the commodities to which they were tied. The commodities labeled included wine, wheat, barley, spelt, garments, oil, sheep and flour. The identity of the commodity is occasionally omitted but the quantity is always given. The handler or destination of the commodity is nearly always stated.