Trade-+Mesopotamia

When people settled into cities in Mesopotamia, the civilization began to realize that they could acquire goods from other areas of the world through a system of trade. It was necessary to acquire goods from areas with a different climate and varying natural resources. The first long-distance trade occurred between Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley in Pakistan around 3000 BC, historians believe. Long-distance trade during this time period was limited mainly to luxury goods such as spices, textiles and precious metals. With the emergence of cities and larger, denser populations, the Mesopotamian economy began to become more and more diverse. The skills that humans had began to expand as people took on tasks other than agriculture, such as metalworking. This specialized labor led to a number of extremely useful discoveries. Mesopotamians had a very large available supply of copper in their area. Mesopotamians discovered that alloying copper and tin would create stronger implements, eventually leading to the invention of the bronze that was quite expensive during that time because of its lack of availability. Bronze was used mostly in military supplies, such as in swords, spears, and axes. Many effective tools were developed from iron as well. While some expanded the civilization’s knowledge of trade, others began to find ways of efficient long distance trade, which included the wheel. The wheels, invented by the Sumerians, revolutionized the transportation of goods. Wheeled carts allowed people to carry heavy loads of goods over longer distances than humans could manage alone or with animals. The idea of the wheel quickly spread to other civilizations. Until 1750 B.C.E., the Mesopotamians traded wool, leather, sesame oil, and jewelry to India in exchange for copper, ivory, pearls, and semi-precious stones. During the Babylonian empire, Mesopotamians imported silver from Anatolia, cedar wood from Lebanon, copper from Arabia, gold from Egypt, tin from Persia, lapis lazuli from Afghanistan, and semi-precious stones from northern India.

Shipbuilding was also an important advancement. By 3500 B.C.E., Mesopotamians had built water vehicles that could allow travel further than the Persian Gulf. Soon, they were trading regularly with the people of northern India of the Indus Valley civilization. The Mesopotamians used three types of boats: wooden boats with a triangular sail, the “turnip” or Guffa boat which was in the shape of a tub made of reeds and covered with skin, and the kalakku which was a raft of timbers supported by inflated animal skins. One particular trade network of Mesopotamia was the network in which Assyrian merchants traveled by donkey caravan, made possible by the wheel, about 1,000 miles from northern Mesopotamia to Anatolia. Evidence found between 1810 and 1765 B.C.E. shows that, in all, merchants transported more than eighty tons of tin, and one hundred thousand textiles. They returned from their long journey with about ten tons of silver in exchange. Mesopotamians did not use money in exchange for goods and service, but rather a barter system. A writing system was created to keep track of “buying” and “selling”. Scribes kept accurate records of all business on clay tablets. Evidence found also shows that fathers left their wives and children to travel and work in Anatolia. Their wives and children produced the textiles that would be sent to him in the trading colonies of Anatolia. In turn, men would send the orders for more textiles to their families. This showed that families were intertwined in a well organized business.



