An analysis of several dozen Bronze Age vessels from the Qurayyah oasis in north-western Arabia may have identified the first branded goods in human history

The two-colour painted pottery of this region has long been known to specialists as "Midianite", and its origin remained a matter of dispute. The first batch of painted ware was made some 3,600 years ago, and its production continued uninterrupted for centuries, undergoing only modest change. Around 3,200 years ago the craftsmen worked out a stable repertoire of decoration, with images of animals and human rituals. It was precisely this ware that travelled hundreds of kilometres: north, into the Southern Levant, reaching sites such as Tell el-Kheleifeh and the shrine of the Egyptian goddess Hathor at Timna, and south, into Northern Arabia. The oasis's pottery tradition lasted for roughly another thousand years, until the end of the Iron Age.

These vessels were so recognisable and so much in demand that, functionally, they must be regarded as a trademark, although neither the notion of intellectual property nor advertising existed at the time. But they were produced in a single region, were distributed over vast distances and bore the stable hallmarks of a style of their own