Wen-Amun and Zakar-Ba’al: Gift or Trade?

Abstract

The trade negotiations carried on by the Theban envoy Wen-Amun and Zakar-Ba’al king of Byblos must be seen against a complex economic and political background.¹ The two countries are at the same technological level, and they employ a common measure of value in their trade: each partner is aware of what the other wants and why, and the value that he is disposed to place on it. The specific object of negotiation between them — wood of the cedar tree — is a raw material; this implies that Byblos is a peripheral country and Egypt the central one, where the raw material is converted into usable products. But the economic sophistication of Byblos turns the tables on Egypt, especially since the latter’s need for cedar is much greater than the need of Byblos to export it. A similar situation in the Amarna period put the Alashiya king in a strong position: he ruled a commercially developed country (the Cyprus of today) that monopolized another essential material, copper. This explains the impudent tone of the small Cypriot king in comparison with the humble and pressing requests of the Mitanni or Kassite kings.