Kommunikation und Ökonomie

This study introduces the source type of papyrus letters into the investigation of ancient economy. These helped people from manifold social backgrounds to keep up local to supra-provincial communication networks that provided information. The entire correspondence including organisational problems such as the search for and acquisition of carriers and transfer is described and analysed. Networking lowered transaction costs and safeguarded efficient movement of letters and goods. Announcement and cover letters, complaints, confirmations, parallel dispatch by several messengers, and codes helped maintaining control. Agents were employed for observing several markets, enquiring about prices and quantities of goods, searching for items and offers, reconciling of results, forecasting, and trading. A compilation of all consignments indicates, from the 2nd century A. D. onwards, a constant flow of merchandise into the eastern desert and - unlike predicted by primitivistic approaches of research - a clear lack of luxury articles. Reasons for shipment were shortages, market observation, and self-supply. The letters attest to the arts of economics, procurement, and generating of profit [chrematistics].