What does this tell us about the Crusades?
Not only did the crusades facilitate cultural merging within the eastern Mediterranean, but it also acted as the touchstone for eastern Mediterranean influence on Europe. The crusades were a time of extensive trade and travel which would influence the European world in terms of their art and design. In the 12th and 13th century, Italian mercantile cities, like Venice, began controlling a lot of Byzantine ceramic trade within the eastern Mediterranean. Byzantine potters were powerful in their position on the map between the Islamic and Christian worlds and helped influence European art and objects. As previously discussed in the page before, documented shipwrecks fromt the 12th and 13th centuries reveal the extensive amount of ceramics that were moving by ship across the Black and Agean Sea, as well as the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Ceramics were easily portable and therefore constantly traded items and it would be easy for a Crusader to aquire this artifact and bring it back to Europe with them. Our bowl's unique iconography would refer to their experience in the Holy Land and showcase the crusaders' travels there. Ceramics from the eastern Mediterranean would be valuable to a European crusader, acting as a reminder of their cross-cultural crusade.