This book focus on trade and cultural interactions in the Eastern Mediterranean in the late Hellenistic and Roman periods, and discuss the extent to which these mechanisms can be traced from the ceramic evidence. Research in the Western Mediterranean has already yielded results that enable us to put forward theories of, not only trade patterns and trade mechanisms, but also more complex theories of the socio-economic realities of the Roman empire. In the West this has been made possible through the understanding of the different pottery sequences, through published kiln sites, through quantification of pottery and through revealed shipwrecks. However, things are different in the still less well-documented East, and it is of utmost importance that we now turn to this less explored part of the ancient world in order to gain a more profound understanding of the ancient trade.

In the winter of 1998 junior and senior scholars of classical archaeology discussed the matter at an international seminar at Sandbjerg Manorhouse in Denmark. Trade Relations in the Eastern Mediterranean from the Late Hellenistic Period to Late Antiquity: the Ceramic Evidence contains the contributions of this fruitful meeting.