History of Trade II
Posted on June 29, 2010
One of the most leading countries at the beginning of international trade was Yemen thanks to its incense. It attracted settlers from the fertile crescent, a region in Western Asia including Mesopotamia and the Levant, delimited by the dry climate of the Syrian Desert to the south and the Anatolian highlands to the north. And after the end of the incense trade, Yemen took the export of coffee via the Red Sea port of al-Mocha.
From the beginning of Greek civilization until the fall of the 5th century, trade brought valuable spices to Europe from the far east, including India and China. The fall of the Roman Empire brought instability to Western Europe and a near collapse of the trade network in the western world. However, trade was still flourishing in the kingdoms of Africa, Middle East, India, China and Southeast Asia. And in the mean time, Radhanites (medieval group of Jewish merchants) were still trading between the Christians in Europe and the Muslims of the Near East.
Then in 1498, Vasco da Gama pioneered the European Spice trade and reached Calicut sailing across the African continent. The spice trade was a major economic importance and it brought to Europe from the Eastern world some of the most valuable commodities that was sometimes rivaling gold.
The massive use of trade, nationally and internationally gave birth to the development of money. It was existing for a very long time, but it’s value was not determined. Before being coins, it’s had several forms like pigs, rare seashells, whale’s teeth and even cattle. Then in medieval Iraq for example, bread was used as an early form of money, whereas cocoa beans were money for people of Mexico under Montezuma. The first stage of currency formed the basis of trade in the Fertile Crescent for over 1500 years, by using metals representing stored value and with symbols to represent commodities.