Maritime Trade
Learn about ancient maritime trade — how seafaring peoples connected civilizations across the Mediterranean, Indian Ocean, and beyond.
Maritime trade was the internet of the ancient world — the fastest, cheapest way to move goods, ideas, and people across long distances. While overland caravans were limited by terrain, weather, and the carrying capacity of pack animals, a single merchant ship could transport tons of cargo across the Mediterranean in a matter of weeks. The civilizations that mastered the sea gained enormous economic and cultural advantages.
The Phoenicians were the ancient Mediterranean's supreme maritime traders. From their ports in modern Lebanon, they sailed to Cyprus, North Africa, Spain, and possibly beyond the Strait of Gibraltar. Their colonies, most notably Carthage, created a commercial network spanning the entire western Mediterranean. But maritime trade in the Bronze Age was far broader: Egyptian ships sailed to Punt (probably modern Somalia), Harappan merchants traded with Mesopotamia via the Persian Gulf, and Austronesian seafarers colonized islands across the Pacific.
Maritime trade didn't just move goods — it moved ideas. Writing systems, religious concepts, artistic styles, and technologies spread along sea routes with remarkable speed. The Phoenician alphabet, carried by merchant ships across the Mediterranean, was adopted by the Greeks and eventually became the foundation for Western writing systems. In this sense, the ancient world's maritime traders were as important for cultural transmission as for economic exchange.