This book focuses on the Canaanite-Phoenician economic systems that predominated in and determined Mediterranean history. Phoenician trade networks were sophisticated and elaborate operations that required a highly developed society and institutions in order to spread and be maintained. By tracking the manufacture, use, and shipment routes of Phoenician products, primarily those traded in amphorae and bottles but also fine-ware and their associated assemblages, a new map of Mediterranean connectivity and interrelations emerges, whose routes, operations and cultural affiliation lasted a long time. The Phoenician trade-nets are presented geographically, with special attention paid to the traceable product networks involving wine, salted fish, or perfumed oils.

This book follows a continuous line of development from Canaanite pottery to the Phoenician pottery corpus. Phoenician pottery typically is considered to have first emerged in the Iron Age, and most research is limited to the first half of the first millennium BCE. The current analysis, however, shows the Canaanite predecessors as well as the ongoing continuity of Phoenician forms and techniques during the Hellenistic and Roman periods. There are two areas of focus, both of which will be illustrated from materials drawn primarily from the Levant. The first is Phoenician container products, especially amphorae and bottles, although other coarse ware forms are included. The second is red-slip pottery, which was a constant feature of the Phoenician assemblage. These were mainly open vessels that did not contain other products and were valued for their ritual attributes.