This paper analyses the use of small ingots and scrap metal as understood in light of their archaeological context and viewed in the framework of exchange systems in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1550 1200 BCE). It presents an overview of the development of forms of payment which emerged in the Levant during the Late Bronze Age and surveys the patterns of exchange used by important centres (such as Egypt, Mitanni, Babylon, Assyria, and Hatti), enclaves (such as Ugarit and Alasiya), and dependent peripheral societies (such as Syria and Canaan). As is demonstrated, the developmental logic of these systems changed over time as new techniques of exchange emerged, but there are also broad continuities over millennia. During the 15th century BCE in Egypt, ingots are generally listed as "tribute" from foreign countries (peripheries, enclaves, and centres), although they may instead have been commodities used in "trade" or "gift-exchange" networks involving great kings and elites. At the end of 14th century BCE, the evidence provided by submarine archaeology suggests the coexistence of royal deliveries of metals and prestige goods from palaces (such as Uluburun) and small enterprises by independent merchants (such as Cape Gelidonya). Shipwreck sites are important in studying exchange in the Late Bronze Age Mediterranean, because these ships (such as Uluburun) carried items from at least eight ancient cultures: Nubian, Egyptian, Canaanite, Kassite, Assyrian, Cypriote, Mycenaean, and Eastern European. Royal merchants could have mixed both state and private transactions as well as executing these on both ceremonial and profit-motivated bases. Merchants (such as those from the Cape Gelidonya ship) were prepared to trade in almost any Eastern Mediterranean port. The textual and archaeological evidence indicates that the changes undergone by the systems and means of exchange extended to all of the Eastern Mediterranean at the end of the Late Bronze Age. The royal merchants, who exchanged metals in talent-sized bulk, were slowly displaced by independent merchants, who exchanged small scraps of metal for other goods and increased their profits through the accumulation of metals. Although recycling was not a new practice, it became much more widespread. The written evidence reflects a clash between a price based system and an older, state-run and tribute-based one. Written sources and archaeological finds indicate the modes of carrying and storage by merchants or wealthy individuals of 'scrap metals' in vessels and sacks, indicating a new price-based system. The archaeological finds reveal that small copper, silver, gold and bronze ingots and metal objects were frequently broken up into small pieces and packed into sealed bags or stored in jars for exchange in the Levant. The ingot fragments were used as "small change" during metal-weighing transactions. Small amounts of scrap were carried by merchants to pay traveling expenses and supplies. Scrap metal became a reasonable commodity for independent merchants from at least ca. 1350-1300 BCE.
