When the Phoenicians settled across the breadth of the Mediterranean in ancient times, the sailors unknowingly established one of the most noteworthy trade networks in world history. The Mediterranean Sea Trade enjoyed thousands of years of maritime trading prominence before the Roman Empire and into modern times. With so many influential civilizations arising throughout history in its bordering lands of Africa, Asia, and Europe, the Mediterranean Sea was often the sea at the center of the world.
Mediterranean Sea Trade Route Map
The Mediterranean Sea is a large body of water between Southern Europe, Northern Africa, and Western Asia. Notably, the Mediterranean Sea is "almost" a closed sea, but the Strait of Gibraltar to its west (between Africa and the Iberian Peninsula) gives it access to the Atlantic Ocean. Three linked straits, the Bosporus, Marmara, and Dardanelles Straits, connect the Mediterranean to the Black Sea. Additionally, the Mediterranean also has direct access to the Nile River in Africa. The west part of the Mediterranean is known as the Levant. These geographical connections would be instrumental in developing the Mediterranean Sea Trade's expansive network.
Levant:
The historical term for the land region of Western Asia bordering the Mediterranean, including modern-day Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan, among other territories.
Modern map of the Mediterranean Sea. Source: Janwillemvanaalst, CC-BY-4.0, Wikimedia Commons.
Given the Mediterranean Sea's proximity between the three most important continents of the Ancient, Classical, and Medieval Periods, it is unsurprising that the sea was so important to trade and simultaneously the diffusion of world cultures. The Italian Peninsula (lo Stivale, in Italian, translated to "the boot") lies conveniently at the Mediterranean's center. Again, it becomes unsurprising why the Roman Empire (with its capital in Italy) and later the Italian Maritime Republics became so successful through Mediterranean Sea Trade.
For the three quarters of the globe, the Mediterranean Sea is similarly the uniting element and the center of World History.
–German Philosopher Friedrich Hegel
Mediterranean Sea Trade Route
Historians sometimes refer to the Mediterranean as the "Roman Lake" of the Roman Empire, whose boundaries once covered all of the land surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. The Romans fell around the 5th century CE, but the empire had a successor: the Byzantine Empire. Based in the eastern half of the fallen Roman Empire, with its capital of Constantinople located between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, the Byzantine Empire would preside over Mediterranean Sea Trade during the height of the region's commerce from 600 CE to 1450 CE.
Map of Medieval Mediterranean and Atlantic trade routes. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
Mediterranean Sea Trade Route Connections
Trade routes in the Mediterranean Sea connected imports from Gibraltar to Algiers and Tripoli in Africa, Constantinople, Naples, Alexandria, Antioch, and more. Arabians could export horses to Italy and receive shipments of iron, olive oil, weapons, or enslaved people in exchange. Across the Mediterranean Sea, goods such as wine, carpets, amber, ivory, copper, tin, lead, silver, gold, food, textiles, diamonds, incense, perfumes, animal hides, grain, glass, pottery, and salt could all be bought and sold.
Mediterranean Sea Trade Modes of Transportation
The most common mode of transportation in the Mediterranean Sea Trade was a square-sailed ship with oars for rowing. The design for square-sail vessels goes as far back as the Phoenicians and Ancient Egypt. Without necessitating a total replacement, the square-sail ships were continually developed and improved into the Classical and Medieval Periods.
European "hulk" ships first sailed into the Mediterranean in 900 CE, representing river and canal sailing improvements. In the 11th century, Viking longships sailed into the Mediterranean. From that period to the Renaissance, the latten sail became ubiquitous, giving birth to the Portuguese caravel. The Mediterranean Sea hosted a plethora of various fascinating sailing ship designs.
While the Byzantine Empire was a dominant force in the Mediterranean, the aforementioned Italian Maritime Republics achieved the most success through Mediterranean Sea Trade. Rising to prominence in the 11th century, the Italian Republics of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa all facilitated trade, cultural diffusion, and warfare between the land of Afro-Eurasia. Indeed, the Italian Republics were crucial in supplying the Christian soldiers of the Crusades from the 11th to the 13th century.
Mediterranean Sea Trade Complex
The Mediterranean Sea Trade Complex (meaning a network of many parts) allowed for connections between distant lands. Commercialism and economy inspired trade across the Mediterranean, but the long-term consequences were entirely different. Although the Silk Road was active during much of Mediterranean Sea Trade history, China and Southeast Asia could connect directly to the Mediterranean through the Parthians and later the Sassanids in Persia. Afro-Eurasia was connected through trade in the Mediterranean; the spread of cultures and religion followed.
Fig. 3- Mediterranean harbor.
Christianity, drawing its strength from Constantinople, and Islam in Africa and the Levant, the two primary religions involved in the Mediterranean Sea Trade. Cultures clashed, but it was not all war as the Crusades would suggest. Constantinople had Muslim citizens, and even mosques before the Ottoman Empire captured the city. The pre-Ottoman Seljuk Turks fought in the crusades and often traded and intermarried with the Christian Byzantine Empire.
Mediterranean Sea Trade Technology
Advancements in navigation technology continued throughout the Medieval Mediterranean Sea Trade:
- The Islamic states were especially productive, creating magnetic compasses and the kamal and quadrant, devices used for celestial navigation.
- The Qarib, a ship used by Andalusians (13th-century Islamic people on the Iberian Peninsula), would act as the blueprint for the future Portuguese caravel.
- Navigators in the Italian Maritime Republics began drafting portolan charts in the 13th century; these nautical charts were highly accurate and considered by historians to be ahead of their time.
Fig. 4- Mosaic depicted Odysseus sailing in the Mediterranean.
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