Trade and Ports in the Sultanate of Rum

The Sultanate of Rum was the Seljuk state based in Anatolia, the peninsula between the Black Sea and Mediterranean. Its inland markets connected with two newly secured sea outlets in the early thirteenth century: Sinop on the Black Sea and Antalya on the Mediterranean. Alanya, farther east along the southern coast, joined the sultanate around 1221. These ports linked overland routes across the plateau to maritime markets, and ruler-made agreements set practical terms for foreign merchants. After the Mongol victory at Köse Dağ in 1243, these commercial ties persisted under new political obligations.

From inland markets to the coast

Inland towns such as Konya and Kayseri connected the central Anatolian plateau with coastal roads. Goods travelled between local markets and ports, where merchants could continue by sea rather than carry everything overland. Sultan Kaykhusraw I (r. 1205–1211) took Antalya in 1207. Its predominantly Christian population later rebelled with help from Cyprus, and Sultan Kaykavus I restored Seljuk control in 1215–1216. From the harbour, routes crossed the plateau and linked to shipping toward Rhodes, Cyprus and Syrian ports. Sinop, captured in 1214, gave the sultanate an outlet on the Black Sea, where Venetian traders were already active.

Under Sultan Alaeddin Kayqubad I (r. 1220–1237), Seljuk ambitions reached across that sea. Around 1222, an expedition launched from Sinop briefly seized Sudak, a major trading port on the Crimean coast. The expedition placed Sudak within a maritime network connecting Anatolia, the Black Sea and the northern grasslands.

Alanya, taken around 1221, added another Mediterranean outlet. Kayqubad developed a shipyard there as well as the fortified harbour. His inland building program included eighteen Caravanserais, roadside inns for merchants and their animals. Peacock estimates that these represented about a third of the extant thirteenth-century caravanserais, showing how commercial investment reached inland from the ports.

Cargoes, customs and agreements

Black Sea traffic carried furs from Russian lands south into Anatolia and the wider Islamic world. The same routes carried enslaved people from the northern Black Sea grasslands; their forced displacement was a brutal part of the trade, distinct from the merchants’ own travel. A treaty between Kayqubad and Venice lists another set of cargo categories: grain, pearls, precious stones, gold and silver. These goods could move from Anatolian markets toward the Mediterranean.

The 1220 Venetian agreement made customs more predictable. Venetian merchants paid a standard duty of two percent of a shipment’s value, while the treaty exempted grain, pearls, precious stones, and worked or unworked gold and silver.

The agreement also addressed what happened when trade went wrong. It promised reciprocal protection for merchants and their property in cases of shipwreck or other misfortune, including vessels seeking refuge in Seljuk ports. Its court clause gave Venetian officials authority over disputes between Venetians and other western merchants such as Pisans, while assault with a weapon and theft remained matters for the sultan’s court. These provisions gave a foreign merchant a known duty rate, a route to resolve some disputes, and a named authority to approach when goods or a ship were lost. Separate letters between Sultan Izz al-Din Kaykavus I (r. 1211–1220) and King Hugh I of Cyprus (r. 1205–1218) likewise addressed the treatment of shipwrecks in each ruler’s territory.

Trade under Mongol supremacy

Mongol pressure arrived before the decisive battle. In 1232 a Mongol raid reached Sivas, and Kayqubad submitted to Great Khan Ögedei, supreme ruler of the Mongol Empire, though direct Mongol rule came later. In 1243, the Mongol general Bayju defeated Sultan Kaykhusraw II (r. 1237–1246) at Köse Dağ. Kaykhusraw fled first to Konya and then Antalya while his vizier negotiated submission; Bayju’s forces razed Sivas and Kayseri. The sultanate continued as a subject state, owing substantial annual tribute and facing demands to accommodate Mongol troops.

Italian merchants were still permitted to trade in Anatolia during the early Mongol period, and Seljuk administrative arrangements initially remained in use. Grain moved in both directions over this period: after 1243, Seljuk authorities imported it from the Empire of Nicaea, a Byzantine successor state in western Anatolia; during the famine of 1268, Martin da Canal listed Turks among suppliers of grain to Venice.