Seafaring and Seafarers in the Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean

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Seafaring serves as a mode of travel that facilitates the transport of goods, people, and ideas across maritime spaces. By the mid-third millennium BC, seagoing ships were already active between the Levant, Egypt, Cyprus, and Anatolia, with operations expanding into the Aegean by the millennium's end. By the Late Bronze Age (circa 1700/1600 BC), seaborne trade transformed the eastern Mediterranean into an economic hub, challenging the dominance of Aegean, Canaanite, and Egyptian trading monopolies. This era saw a complex web of seafaring involving diverse peoples engaged in economic and social exchanges. This study aims to explore the origins and development of early trade networks, investigating who participated in these maritime activities, who constructed and captained the ships, and which ports were vital for trade. It also examines evidence related to seafaring, fishing, and the exploitation of marine resources. By analyzing a variety of material, documentary, and iconographic evidence, the work reconsiders interpretations of Bronze Age seafaring across the eastern Mediterranean, from Anatolia to Egypt and Cyprus. Notably, it emphasizes the social dimensions of seafaring, including mobility, connectivity, risk, navigation skills, and the influence of distance on identity and ideology, areas often overlooked in existing literature.