Michael H. Fisher’s scientific contributions

... Reconstructions of trade routes are based on a combination of finds of material artefacts, literary, documentary and epigraphic reports, and all too often considerations of probability. In some precious few cases, like the rich cuneiform archives of the early second millennium BCE expatriate Assyrian merchant community in Anatolian Kanesh (Larsen, 2000) and the records of the Medieval Jewish merchant community recovered from Cairo Geniza (Goitein, 1974; Goitein & Friedman, 2008), we are in the fortunate situation of getting information on products, people and places over a prolonged period of time. In most cases, we need to make do with two of these categories at a single point of time. ...

Reference:

Writ in water, lines in sand: Ancient trade routes, models and comparative evidence