6.2.6 describe the role of egyptian trade in the eastern mediterranean and nile valley
Trade brought Egypt and Nubia together. Egypt was rich in sunshine and soil, but it lacked forests, minerals, horses, and other useful resources found in Nubia and other places. People in ancient Egypt had to get these resources through commerce with the country’s neighbors.Commerce is the buying and selling of goods and services.As their country grew in wealth, Egyptians were eager to buy luxury goods from other lands. Luxury Goods were goods that they did not need, but that made life more enjoyable in some way. Such goods included animal skins, precious stones.
The geographical location of the Nile Valley made it an ideal trade passageway for goods to be sent to the Mediterranean from the interior of Africa. Around 1900 BC, kings of Egypt built huge fortresses in the area of the second cataract to control trade activity and the growing power of the Nubians. From about 1500 to 1100 BC, Egypt conquered and occupied Nubia as far as the fourth cataract. Egyptian domination of Nubia was motivated by the desire to obtain its mineral wealth of gold and carnelian and to obtain goods such as ivory, ebony and animal skins from further south in Africa.
nubia
Known for rich deposits of gold, Nubia was also the gateway through which luxury products like incense, ivory, and ebony traveled from their source in sub-Saharan Africa to the civilizations of Egypt and the Mediterranean.Archers of exceptional skill provided the military strength for Nubian rulers. Kings of Nubia ultimately conquered and ruled Egypt for about a century. Monuments still stand in modern Egypt.
trade between eastern mediterrranean
Egyptians traded with Mesopotamia around 3500 B.C.E., and throughout the eastern Mediterranean. The trade between Egypt and Mesopotamia sometimes included extremely large transfers of goods, for example, almost all wood that was used by Egyptians came from Mesopotamia because Egypt lacked a large amount of foliage. Pharaohs regularly imported large loads of aromatic cedar for use in their tombs. The Egyptians believed strongly in the afterlife and that when a person passed on, that they would take with them what they were buried with. In exchange for the wood, Egyptians exported gold, silver, linen, leather, and dried foods such as lentils. One trade documented about forty ships used to carry the cedar wood. Egyptians also traded with the area throughout the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, in a land they called Punt. They imported gold, ebony, ivory, cattle, exotic animals such as apes, and human slaves from Punt, and exported jewelry, tools, weapons.