Tymoteusz Pawłowski || Transporting bulk goods – for example grain and coal – has never been as big a problem as transporting so-called general cargo – small objects. A solution in the form of containers was found quite recently.
For millennia, rivers have been the best – and often the only – communication and trade route. It’s simple: a horse cart with wooden wheels has a loading capacity of about 500 kg and reaches a speed of 30 kilometers per day. Transporting two dozen barrels of wine from Krakow to Warsaw overland took two weeks and required the efforts of ten drivers. The same load could be floated across the Vistula in one boat, piloted by two people, in half the time.
People noticed this long ago, which is why the main trade route in the ancient world was the Mediterranean. The sea is even better than the river: bigger ships can sail on it and carry bigger loads, which means bigger profits. No wonder it was the Phoenicians who invented money; they were the first to control global (then Mediterranean) trade, and their contacts reached from Phoenicia in Palestine, through Carthage to Gibraltar (perhaps even sailing around Africa and reaching the Americas).
One of the biggest problems in ancient maritime trade was the proper packaging of items shipped abroad (as you can see, not much has changed in 3,000 years). Since the largest profits were made in the oil and wine trade, a suitable solution was found.
Source: Do Rzeczy
Roy Brown is a renowned economist and author at The Nation View. He has a deep understanding of the global economy and its intricacies. He writes about a wide range of economic topics, including monetary policy, fiscal policy, international trade, and labor markets.
