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October 29, 2005
What Does This Have to Do With the Price of Olive Oil in Jerusalem?
The other day I wrote about the problems I was having in deciding how to interpret one of those texts written in the short cuneiform alphabet; specifically KTU 4.710. Well, I'm beginning to close in on a solution that I can live with. Along the way, I ran across an interesting book entitled Economic Life in Ottoman Jerusalem by Amnon Cohen.
Cohen has studied a large set of Arabic documents from Ottoman Jerusalem. The earliest ones are from October 1548 (S 937AH) and most recent are from April 1599 (Ram 1007 AH). He looked specifically at prices and markets for meat, olive oil, soap, flour and bread and he has an interesting appendix on a soap factory in Jerusalem from that period. Of course, I was most interested in the fluctuation of olive oil prices. The lowest price for a 'uqiyyal of olive oil (about 240 gm) in Cohen's table is 1 dirham recorded in a transaction dated January 1532 and the highest price was 4 dirham in November 1533. The price quadrupled in less than two years. But by July 1534 it was down to 1.25 dirham. As far as I can tell, it never dropped to the 1 dirham price again but it wasn't until July 1584 that a price of 4 dirham was again reached. The normal trading range seems to have been between 1.5 and 3 dirham per 'uqiyyal and the price moves fairly freely between those numbers over the fifty year or so period. The same pattern is seen in sales of olive oil in the larger ratl (about 2.88 Kg) quantity.
A couple of other things that are of interest: First, sometimes prices were negotiated for future delivery. Just like our own futures markets, this helped merchants, particularly soap manufacturers, to manage the price of their largest volume raw material. By the way, in case you didn't know, you can go long or short on an olive oil futures contract through the Mercado de Futuros del Aceite de Oliva in Spain. Second, the Ottoman Empire attempted to control the olive oil trade both to protect consumers and to insure that taxes were properly collected. An olive oil market with an official scale was set up in the Sūq al-Sultan. At various times the government tried to make sure all trades were handled through this market. However, there was always gray market and on occasion people who used these more informal channels were brought to justice. Third, two classes of olive tress were recognized. The very old trees, some over a thousand years old, were called rūmānī (Roman) and the trees that were only a few hundred years old were called islāmī (Muslim). The rūmānī trees were more productive then the younger trees and the government taxed them at a higher rate.
How does all this help me decide the interpretation of a tablet that is around 3000 years older than these olive oil sales records? You may remember that by one interpretation of the tablet, the price of olive oil appeared to be two to four times higher than that clearly indicated on two other tablets from Ugarit. I wondered if this kind of price fluctuation might be accounted for by the normal fluctuations in market price. I was (and still am) looking for market price data that would support or refute my hypothesis. On the surface, this data from Ottoman Jerusalem seems to be supportive. But it is not without problems. First, the climate around Jerusalem in the 16th century CE was no doubt different than that around Ugarit in the 14th century BCE. And different climates not only make for different yields but they also affect consistency of yield. And consistency of yield translates into the magnitude of price fluctuations. Second, while farming and manufacturing methods used by the Ugaritic olive oil industry and the Ottoman Jerusalem olive oil industry were pre-modern, they were also very likely quite different. So I may have taken a fairly large step in solving my problem, I still have a few big questions to answer.
Posted by DuaneSmith at October 29, 2005 09:30 PM | Read more on Ugarit |
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Comments
I am no expert on the olive oil trade or market conditions, etc. However, it seems to me that if you can determine whether the same types of olive trees were being used in both areas at both times, then you can figure that the climates were at least similar, and can extrapolate from there. Fifty years is a lot of market data, and therefore indirect climate data, after all.
Posted by: Coralius at October 30, 2005 02:27 AM
What about relative pricing? If olive oil is the primary ingredient to some oher product, its price should fluctuate in a similar manner to the price of olive oil. Also, in a command economy, the prices of basic foodstuffs are frequently set by the authorities. Might this not mean that you would find that the prices of bread, wine, and olive oil maintained a fairly consistent ratio over time?
Posted by: David Tisdale at October 30, 2005 08:11 AM
It is all but 100% certain that the species in both places is Olea europaea. This species is native to coastal areas of the eastern Mediterranean, from Syria to Asia Minor. The species was cultivated in Chalcolithic times and by the Middle Bronze age had reached at least as far south as Ashkelon. By the Late Bronze Age it was known through out the Near East, Europe and North Africa.
Coralius is correct that fifty years is a "lot of market data and therefore indirect climate data." The real problem is that we have almost no market data for Olive oil in the environs of Ugarit: just two certain data points, neither datable with in a fairly long period and on disputed data point which is also not datable with a considerable range. The fact that the tree is quite adapts to a broad range of warmer climates with varying rainfall conditions weakens the analogy between any two sites. By the way, I am inclined to think that the Jerusalem data makes my point but I need to dot the Is and cross the Ts if possible.
David Tisdale's suggest is good if only we had an abundance of data from Ugarit on any commodity with which to do a comparison. On a slightly related subject, I am looking into the relative cost of producing wheat and emmer at Ugarit. The issue is relevant to a different line in this same text. There is almost no data from Ugarit and I am relying of a study of field yields at Nuzi, some 500 miles to the east, southwest of modern Kirkuk and far inland.
Posted by: Duane at October 30, 2005 10:30 AM
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