This course provides students with an overview on Mediterranean interaction during the Iron Age (broadly conceived, namely circa 1000 BC-late 5th century BC) by concentrating on trade contacts and economic relations, visible in the material culture of various Mediterranean regions. The focus will be twofold: on the material culture used by scholars for reconstructing trade and on the different models and economic theories employed to understand trade. The lectures and seminars will be organised according to different themes (sources, theories, trade and religion, trade and the city, coinage), and will concern a selection of regions rather than the whole Mediterranean basin.