Comodities

First of all I have to say I have not done anything about the design of this trade cards, I just have used them for my hellenization variant with the agreement of it’s original designers. I have to give my greatest congratulations to www.civproject.net people and specially to Daryl Luciano who has been the designer of this marvellous set of commodities.

I have done a selection between the wide branch of civi trade cards available (three for west and three for east) only based in my limited knowledge of the ancient greece scene. Below you have a little overview of each trade card used.

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A little brief:

By 7000 bc, increasing numbers of people were migrating from Asia Minor to start new farming communities in the Greek heartland, eventually establishing large settlements on the Balkan Peninsula, the Aegean Islands, and the large island of Crete. These Stone Age peoples made their tools and weapons from stone and bone.

Clothes were normally made from available matirial, wool or flax- and these clothes were made at home. The most commonly clothes were the chiton or tunic and himation or cloak.

Black figured vases are ancient Greek vases with black figures painted on a reddish- orange clay. The Athenian potters learned how to obtain the reddish orange hue by mixing red ochre with their clay.

About 900 bc. An innovation in metallurgy helped Greece escape its Dark Age. Fighting at the end of the Mycenaean period had interrupted the international trade in tin, which was needed to make bronze weapons and tools. To fill the gap, eastern Mediterranean metal workers invented a new technology to smelt iron ore. Greeks learned this skill from eastern traders and began mining their own iron ore, which was common in their heartland

In the Mycenaean culture writing was done on clay tablets that were rolled out flat.Papyrus from Egypt was available but expensive. It was reserved for special documents like treaties.The ancient Greeks wrote on papyrus with pen and ink. Later the Greeks invented parchment and soon parchment displaced papyrus.

The students wrote on wax-covered wood tablets with a stylus, a long, thin tool made of a hard material such as metal or ivory that they used to carve letters into the wax.Wax was also used for making statuary in bronze , using the wax to conform a mold where metal could be poured.

Ancient Greeks made ceramics for everyday use, not for display; the trophies won at games, such as the Panathenaic amphorae (wine decanters), are the exception. Most surviving pottery consists of drinking vessels such as amphorae, kraters (bowls for mixing wine and water), hydria (water jars), libation bowls, jugs and cups. Painted funeral urns have also been found.

Salt was of crucial importance economically.A far-flung trade in ancient Greece involving exchange of salt for slaves gave rise to the expression, “not worth his salt.” The early Greeks worshipped salt no less than the sun, and had a saying that no one should trust a man without first eating a peck of salt with him (the moral being that by the time one had shared a peck of salt with another person, they would no longer be strangers).

Timber was a short resource for most of the polis , aving to trade for it.For example money from the new vein of silver in Laurion enabled Athens to buy timber from Italy to increase her fleet from 40 trireme in 489 BC to 200 in 480.

Because mainland Greece was so rocky and mountainous, discouraging easy grain growing, many city-states came to depend unusually heavily on seagoing grain trade(and colonies). Grain importance was so much for several poleis that for Athens was essential to control the Hellespont, the source of Athens grain imports.

According to mythology the olive tree was brought in Greece from Goddess Athena which also taught the Greeks its cultivation. Indicative for the significance of the olive tree to the Athenians is the fact that there are coins portraying Goddess Athena with an Olive wreath on her helmet and an amphorae with olive oil.Olive trees were, to the Greeks, the symbol of civilization.Barbarians got their fat from animal products like milk and cheese and meat. The Greeks thought it was gross to drink milk, They got their fat mainly from olives, or, because olives don’t keep very well, from olive oil.

The story of wool begins in Asia Minor during the Stone Age about 10,000 years ago. Primitive man living in the Mesopotamian Plain used sheep for three basic human needs: food, clothing, & shelter.Between 3000 & 1000 BC the Persians, Greeks, & Romans distributed sheep & wool throughout Europe.

The earliest evidence of winemaking in Greece is a stone foot press at Vathipetro, a Minoan villa on Crete, dated to 1600 BC. The Greek trade in wine was extensive. An early system of appellation designation was implemented to assure the origins of esteemed products. Wine traveled wherever ships sailed. This, the first golden age of wine, entirely an age of Greek wine, came to a close with the disintegration of Magna Graecia during the Peloponesian Wars.Greeks drank wine mixed with water , drinking pure wine was only for barbarians.

Ancient Greek clothing consisted of unsewn lengths of linen or wool fabric, generally rectangular and secured with a fibula (ornamented clasp or pin) and a sash. Typical of such garments were the peplos, a loose robe worn by women; the chlamys, a cloak worn by men; and the chiton, a tunic worn by both men and women. Men’s chitons hung to the knees, whereas women’s chitons fell to their ankles. The basic outer garment during winter was the himation, a larger cloak worn over the peplos or chlamys.

The economy of ancient Greece was heavily dependent on agriculture and trade.There was a scarcity in grazing land which accounts for the almost insignificant number of people that raised livestock.Because of that livestock became very valueted.

Precious metals were used in jewelry, art, and coinage. Athens had an abundance of silver and we know much about its mining industry from surviving inscriptions of government mine leases to private entrepreneurs. The mines were extremely productive, providing Athens with an income of 200 talents per year.One talent was the equivalent of around nine year’s worth of wages for single skilled laborer working five days a week, 52 weeks a year.

Perhaps the most important use of tin in the ancient world was the production of the bronze alloy. While copper was the primary ingredient, tin was required at a proportion of about 10%.While there were many sources for copper around the Mediterranean in Greek antiquity. Tin, on the other hand, was not easily found in ancient greece and was imported from places as far as southwest Turkey, Afghanistan, spain and Cornwall, England.

The period from about 3000 to 1200 bc is known as the Greek Bronze Age because bronze, a mixture of copper and tin, was the most commonly used metal. Blacksmiths crafted body armor, shields, spears, swords, farm implements, and household utensils. Bronze casting reached the level of fine art in Classical Greece.

The medicinal applications of herbs/plants were mainly confined to the treatment of wounds, since anything pathological was attributed to acts of gods. This attitude and practice changed with Hippocrates (460-370 BC), the famous Greek physician and father of medicine from the isle of Kos. His works that survived through the centuries include references to 237 plant species classified on the basis of their medicinal qualities.Theophrastus, the Greek philosopher and scientist (372-287 BC) set the foundations for modern botany. He provides invaluable information concerning the pharmaceutical and aromatic qualities of a wide range of plants.

Spices have been prominent in human history virtually since its inception. In ancient times spices were used for magical rites and spells, purification ceremonies, embalming, cosmetics and perfumes, medicinal benefits and even poison as well as cooking, preserving and flavouring food.

Resin was used to coat the vessels’interiors to prevent leakage, and also to seal the amphoras.

In ancient Greece, beads shaped as natural forms like shells, flowers and beetles were manufactured on a large scale. Beautiful and delicate necklaces and earrings were found in burial sites in Northern Greece. By 300 BC the Greeks were making multi coloured jewellery and used emeralds, garnets, amethysts and pearls. They also used coloured stones, glass and enamel.

Tyrian purple is a purple dye first made in the ancient Phoenician city of Tyre. It was made from a secretion of various marine snails, such as Banded Dye-Murex, Murex trunculus giving “Hyacinth Purple” and Spiny Dye-Murex, Murex brandaris giving the Tyrian purple. The dye was expensive: Aristotle assigns a value ten to twenty times its weight in gold.

Marble was an expensive building material in Greece: high quality marble came only from Mt Pentelus in Attica and from a few islands such as Paros, and its transportation in large blocks was difficult. It was used mainly for sculptural decoration, not structurally, except in the very grandest buildings of the Classical period such as the Parthenon.

Amber became widely valued around 1600 B.C. Greeks were fascinated by it. In their mythology, amber was made from the tears of a nymph as they dropped into water. In The Odyssey, Homer describes an amber necklace belonging to a distinguished Phoenician merchant. From Greece, amber went to other Mediterranean nations. The ancient Greek word for amber is electron, meaning - originating from the Sun. The Greeks were also the first to describe the electrostatic properties of amber. No wonder that many hundreds of years later this word was used to name electricity.

Excavations in the eastern portion of the acropolis of Mycenae revealed a substantial structure, which contained hundreds of scraps of ivory. Ivory, probably from Syria, first appeared in Greece as tiny ornaments applied to other objects in the Shaft Graves at the beginning of the Late Helladic Period. Ivory was compared to gold and used in the most importantat artworks, for example Zeus statue in Olimpia and Athenea’s statue in the parthenon , both made by Phidias.

Though productive in silver, ancient Greece was not as rich in gold, which was found primarily in Thrace and on the islands of Thasos and Siphnos.No more much to say about gold , from the beginnings of civilization until now one of the most wished and coveted goods. We can’t count how many disasters have been originated by the greedy humans because of this metal.

Hermes, in Greek mythology, is the god of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of orators, literature and poets, of athletics, of weights and measures and invention and commerce in general, of the cunning of thieves, and the messenger from the gods to humans.