3 ms·

Would be awesome to get a good book referral for this indeed.

• thaumasiotes 7y ago
  The original comment is almost certainly thinking of https://www.amazon.com/dp/0199858683/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/0199858683/ (Brotherhood of Kings: How International Relations Shaped the Ancient Near East). It's a very good book. A minor theme is indeed that Mesopotamian city-kings had a hard time trading with Egypt. Mesopotamia seems to have produced mostly textiles, which Egypt made domestically. What Egypt needed from international trade was copper and wood. All the Mesopotamian city-kings wanted gold, though, which came from Egypt. They could get this one time, by marrying a daughter to the Pharaoh. We have an example of Pharaonic correspondence with a king who repeatedly asked for unworked gold, finally sent a daughter over, received a mountain of gold in return, and concluded by complaining that the gold had been worked (into statues). I assume many of those statues got melted down. There is some discussion in https://www.amazon.com/dp/0670022667/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/0670022667/ (Carthage Must Be Destroyed: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Civilization) of how the Phoenician city-states of the bronze age (source of cedar wood to Egypt) gradually succumbed over the centuries to Assyrian empire-building. It's not the main focus of the book though.
  • lowdose 7y ago
    Thank you! Since I heard about the Antikythera mechanism more ancient times have sparked an interest.