This session looks at a number of interrelated issues covered by the word ‘exchange’ (which necessarily covers, but is not limited by, all forms of trade), and the technological and geographical conditions that made such exchange possible (particularly Mediterranean ‘connectivity’). First it looks at the exchange of goods, whether primarily social (as gifts or other ‘entangled objects’) or commercial (as commodities), and the social and economic networks these exchanges create. Second, it looks at how the exchange of goods mediates changes in technology, ideas and culture – exchange, that is, as a medium of acculturation. It seeks to relate these wider patterns to the particular, local circumstances of two of the East Mediterranean’s larger islands, namely Crete and Cyprus, whose respective social and economic development take radically paths in the Early Iron Age and Archaic periods.

1. Athina Chatzidimitriou (Hellenic Ministry of Culture)

Transport of Goods in the Mediterranean region from the Geometric to the Classical Period – Images and Meanings

2. William Caraher (The University of North Dakota), Robert Scott Moore (Indiana University of Pennsylvania), David K. Pettegrew (Messiah College)

Trade and Exchange in the Eastern Mediterranean: A Model from Cyprus

3. Katerina Panagopoulou (University of Crete)

Social networks and exchange in ancient Greece: the evidence of weight standards (a case study)

4. Marie-Claude Boileau (British School at Athens), James Whitley (Cardiff University), Anna Lucia D’Agata (CNR, Roma)

Pottery production in Iron Age Crete Viewed in the Context of Regional and External Trade Networks: A Ceramic Petrology Perspective

5. Anna Cannavò (Univerité Lumière-Lyon 2)

The Cypriot Kingdoms in the Archaic Age: A Multicultural Experience in the Eastern Mediterranean