Bilbils were storage jars that originated from Cyprus. Some scholars believe that these vessels were used for the widespread trade of opium in the Late Bronze Age. The shape of the bibil bears a resemblance to the poppy plant.

The southern Levant always has been crossed by many travel and trade routes. Along these roads, ideas and information were exchanged along with goods and services, thus opening Canaan, and later Israel, to influences from throughout the ancient world. In the Late Bronze Age, Canaanite traders played a key role in the first period of international sea trade in the Mediterranean. They were part of a thriving commerce between Egypt, Cyprus and Greece. Underwater archaeologists have recovered Canaanite storage jars along with copper ingots, luxury goods, and pottery from Cyprus and Greece from the cargoes of Late Bronze Age shipwrecks off the coast of Turkey. In the Iron Age, the impetus for renewed international trade came form the Phoenicians who traveled widely in search of metal ores and also established a network of colonies throughout the Mediterranean. By the end of the 8th century BCE, some of the Greek city-states began to send out colonists throughout the Mediterranean and also dispatched traders to the Levant in search of luxury goods like ornate metal bowls and carved ivories.