ABSTRACT
This chapter explains how the circulation of ordinary perishable goods such as textiles contributed to the establishment and maintenance of long-distance trade routes that also served to distribute small quantities of elite goods once political hierarchies emerged. Trade in the ancient Middle Asian Interaction Sphere took place among distinct cultural and political groups, and scholars initially focused on its elite connotations. Mogens Larsen has discussed the potential for cloth production to transform local economies into regional ones, making a historical analogy that "the Italian and the Flemish cities built their wealth on trade in cloth" and proposing that there was similar potential for cloth as an important component of trade in the Mesopotamian Bronze Age. Archaeological evidence suggests that the Indus had a high level of sophistication in textile manufacture and use. Fabric impressions in faience vessels indicate the use of spinning wheels which produce a much finer thread than hand spinning.
