← Explore on the interactive map

Levantine trade networks

Type Event Region West Asia Time 1131–1140

In the 1130s, despite the state of war between the Crusader states and Muslim powers, coastal and inland trade networks in the Levant remained active.

Timeline

  1. 1131–1135Acre and Tyre · Coastal GalileeAcre and Tyre, as the main ports of the Crusader states, attracted Venetian, Genoese, and Pisan merchants. Spices, silk, sugar, and glassware were imported from the East by sea and then transshipped to Europe; port tariffs became an important source of revenue for the Crusader states.
  2. 1132–1137Damascus–Cairo trade route · LevantDamascus, as the trade center of the Syrian interior, maintained commercial contacts with Cairo and Baghdad via caravans. Despite political fragmentation, Muslim merchants still transported cotton, olive oil, metalwork, and luxury goods along this route, sustaining economic ties between the Levant and Egypt and Mesopotamia.
  3. 1135–1140Levantine frontier trading posts · LevantIn the 1130s, the Crusader states and Muslim powers maintained limited commercial exchange through truces, reciprocal tariff agreements, and intermediaries such as Syrian Christian merchants. War blockades and trade openings alternated, forming the distinctive Levantine economic landscape of 'prosperity on the edge of war.'

Sources