Regional exchange and the role of the shop in Byzantine and Early Islamic Syria-Palestine: an archaeological view

The mechanisms of intra-regional exchange in Byzantine and early Islamic Syria-Palestine are being increasingly understood through modern archaeological research. Ceramics and coins, while offering slightly differing perspectives, reveal a local economic network that was founded on a distribution system with an optimal reach of 30 to 50 kilometers. Beyond that distance, the exchange of commodities could occur up to 100 kilometers away from a production point, an outcome probably achieved through secondary market points. Coins of the sixth and seventh centuries show the considerable extent to which these distribution systems remained self-reliant, but in the eighth century the evidence suggests a widening of horizons. Archaeological evidence also brings new insights into how exchange functioned at the local level. Towns, villages, and the countryside were served by new and long-established shop complexes and markets, in which commodities drawn from local and distant places could be found and services offered. In the eighth century a system of credit was customary, even the norm, in commerce, and Arabic had become firmly established as the everyday language of trade. Thus, in areas as diverse as financial systems, weights and measures, and language, a tangible change can be observed as Byzantium gave way to Islam in the towns of seventh- and eighth-century Syria-Palestine. Accordingly, the study of trade is not only a matter of economic history but also a key to comprehending social transformations at the end of antiquity.