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Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 81, , Scross the medieval Mediterranean, luxury goods were exchanged as objects of tr I as spoils of war, and as gifts.
The complexities of trade, war, an diplomacy give way to the ambiguities of socially constructed meaning, which is itself static: moving an object changes its meaning. Sometimes the new meaning was calculated by the exporter. In Cassiodorus ordered Boethius to take a water clock to the ruler of the Burgundians, and to show the B gundians how it worked, so that, in Cassiodorus's words, "when they have turned fro their amazement, they will not dare to think themselves the equals of us, among whom they know, sages have thought up such devices.
It is a pleasure to thank participants in the Symposium on Realities in the Medieval Mediterranean, an later, the Byzantine Seminar at Oxford, for their comments after this paper was delivered. In the 6th and early 5th centuries B. Aristocratic entrepreneurs and settlers, but also doctors, philosophers, merchants, tradesmen and craftsmen often covered great distances.
As these people moved, their knowledge, religions, technologies and fashions moved with them. The migration of people, ideas and goods meant that many ethnic groups in the Mediterranean region were either directly or indirectly connected - from the Raeti in the West to the Carians in the East. This paper sheds light on this seemingly modern phenomenon of migration, using as examples the spread of alphabetic writing and exquisite banquet fashions in the Mediterranean with specific reference to the period around B.
