ABSTRACT
Once societies passed through the agricultural revolution, some began a process of transition toward social, political, and economic complexity that ultimately made them qualitatively and quantitatively different from earlier societies. Historians no longer draw a hard distinction between societies officially labeled as “civilizations” and others that do not quite meet the set of criteria that were once rigidly in place. But the word “civilization” is still convenient to apply to societies that went through this process, if we recognize that it represents a very ambiguous concept. With this in mind, the earliest civilization is considered to have emerged in Sumer, the southern part of Mesopotamia, a large plain lying between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers during the fourth millennium BCE. The soil of Sumer was alluvial and very rich, allowing cultivators to pro-
duce a surplus of wheat and barley. Communities coalesced into city states such as Uruk, which undertook large construction projects that included temples and other forms of monumental architecture requiring vast amounts of building materials. Once built, these establishments needed to be furnished, indeed adorned. At the same time, the elite classes of priests and officials who directed and managed these societies did not hesitate to reward themselves with the luxury and prestige items they felt they so justly deserved. Armies needed to be equipped, ships built, infrastructure maintained, and other practical matters addressed. Once again trade increased enormously. The trade of the early civilizations must be kept in perspective. Most
people lived out their lives farming, herding, or fishing and consuming food, clothing, and other goods they produced themselves or obtained from their immediate locale. The Sumerian economy was never primarily directed toward export production, and the common people that comprised its base got no direct benefit from long-distance trade. Nevertheless, the importance of trade was disproportionate to its scale. Trade became an engine in driving socio-political complexity. If the Sumerians wanted to build great cities and allow their elite classes
to maintain a privileged lifestyle, they had to be great traders since Sumer
was a resource-deficient area. Although it could produce a bounty of food once irrigation systems were in place, Sumer had no deposits of metals or useful stone, and its wood was unsuitable for heavy construction. Most of what Sumer lacked could be found in sufficient quantities in the areas that ringed Mesopotamia. Building an empire to incorporate these lands was not a viable option until the late third millennium: the Sumerian cities could not so much as unify themselves. The solution was long-distance trade. In the highlands to the east in modern Iran, copper had been worked as early as the fifth millennium BCE, and by the third millennium silver was coming from that direction as well. Beyond Iran was Afghanistan, from which tin and precious stones reached Mesopotamia, some probably through directional trade. The mountains to the north in Anatolia and the Caucasus were a storehouse of metals, and copper also came from the opposite direction on the eastern shores of the Persian Gulf. Syria and Lebanon to the west were a source of cedar and other hardwoods as well as wine and olive oil. Imports have to be paid for by exports, and determining what the
Sumerians used for this is somewhat tricky. They produced a surplus of grain and other foodstuffs, such as dates, dried fish, and lard. The problem was transportation, especially when goods had to be carried overland. Foodstuffs are a bulky commodity, and a lot of grain would have been required to pay for a rather small quantity of metal, not to mention precious stones. To make matters even less clear, food is among the most perishable of items and thus archaeologically invisible. Documentary evidence confirms that Mesopotamia exported textiles in the form of woolen cloth and clothing as well as leather products. Luxury goods flowed in both directions. The temples and palaces of Sumerian cities had great workshops that took in imported raw materials and turned out finely made jewelry, ceremonial and ritual items, weapons, and aromatic oils. Much of this was intended for the local elite, but at least some of it was exported with much value added. Over the years the Sumerians were able to create a market for their own surplus production. The consequence of this for the highland communities of Iran and other peripheries was to accelerate the process of social stratification as local leaders emerged to direct the production of Sumerian-bound exports and control the distribution of imports from Sumer. As the cities of Mesopotamia became larger, richer, more centralized, and
more complex, their needs expanded. Resources were sucked in from increasing distances as older networks of exchange broadened and new ones were created. Two systems evolved. In the first, trade expeditions, usually armed and under the banner of a king or temple, were sent out on a sporadic basis. The preferred way to trade was with partners with whom a relationship was already established rather than wandering around dealing with whomever one happened upon. In the second system, relay trade was used across a succession of middlemen. Rivers, especially the Euphrates, functioned as trunk lines for transporting goods with secondary linkages in the
form of overland routes radiating outward in various directions. Trade routes and trading partners depended on changing circumstances, especially political factors such as the rise of new states or the collapse of old ones, creating new opportunities or ending old ties. But if the merchants of a particular city could exercise control over a trade route, they could ensure not only their own access to particular commodities but also assume some measure of control over other peoples’ economies. As early as the late fourth millennium BCE, the need for certain imports
led to the creation of trading posts, enclaves, and colonies outside of Sumer. The best known of these was at Habuba Kabira on the upper Euphrates River in modern Syria, which was established under the auspices of the temple at Uruk. Habuba Kabira was located at a strategic position for controlling east to west trade running from Iran across northern Mesopotamia to the Mediterranean coast and could serve as a jumping off point to Anatolia as well. The inhabitants of Habuba Kabira, who may have numbered 6,0008,000, did not produce their own food: the place was purely an entrepot. It lasted for about a century and a half, after which it disappeared. The nature of early Sumerian trade is still a point of debate with two
alternative models. One begins with the assumption that trade was initially conducted between societies, then institutions, and only later individuals. In a Sumerian city state, the government or temple engaged in gift exchange and held a monopoly over long-distance trade through its agents. Prices were set so that a guaranteed return could be expected on the safe delivery of a consignment. The other model has independent merchants, financed by their own or other private capital, calculating the difference in gains they would realize by bringing a particular commodity to a particular destination, reckoning risks, cost of transportation, and time spent. In other words, this model assumes the existence of a market economy. How far this went in becoming a truly self-regulating market based on supply and demand is questionable since in the ancient world the tie between production and price was a tenuous one. Over the long history of ancient Mesopotamia, both models are apparent, with the institutional agent prominent in the earlier period and the entrepreneur becoming more common later. Just how much later is the central point of the debate. When did the entrepreneur first appear and, more importantly, when was the change significant enough to matter? Although signs of entrepreneurial activity may be visible as early as the late fourth millennium BCE, the third and second millennia are seen as the crucial periods. The earliest Sumerian traders did not constitute a middle class. In fact,
they didn’t constitute a separate class at all. The agents who represented kings and temples were part of the governing class, important men on a level with military commanders and high civil officials sometimes linked to the royal family by blood or marriage. Their livelihood was not dependent on market mechanisms but rather on their position at court. Their role was
more akin to that of ambassador than peddler, and in the sources the words for “envoy” and “merchant’ are often used interchangeably. In one Mesopotamian hymn, the high god Enlil is referred to as “merchant of the wide earth.” At the other end of the scale, petty merchants involved in retail trade were not middle class either; they were solidly embedded in the lower ranks of society. As duty-minded as the agent of a king or temple may have been, at some
point agents also started trading privately, when the opportunity presented itself, for their own benefit. Merchants employed by the palace who accumulated capital on the side were in a position to survive the collapse of a dynasty or with some luck perhaps even a state. Others with capital, including members of ruling families, were not above joining in the pursuit of private gain through investment. Some merchants began operating independently of palace and temple, which the state does not seem to have opposed so long as it reserved the right to monopolize the trade in certain strategic commodities and the entrepreneurs paid their usually high tariffs. In fact, given the nature of the goods traded, the state and temples and the elites who controlled these institutions constituted the customer base for profit-driven trade. At times the palace and temple even encouraged private trade by lending money for a share of the profits or commissioning private traders to represent them in various commercial transactions. However, it should be noted that the development of early Sumerian cities was not uniform; different cities evolved in different ways, including how they carried on their long-distance trade, so merchants in various places at various times operated under different conditions. But during some times in some places, something like a true commodity market based on supply and demand, fueled by profit seeking, and made possible by capital accumulation and investment, did operate. The Sumerian city states were finally unified by an outside force, their
northern neighbors, the Akkadians, under Sargon. The creation of the first empire in history was due in part to Sargon’s desire to control the trade in raw materials for the benefit of Akkad. Once the Sumerians were subdued, Sargon moved north into what is referred to in the texts as the “Silver Mountains” (Anatolia) and west to the “Cedar Forest” (Lebanon), assuming control over trade routes and commercial cities such as Elba and Mari. By his time, Mesopotamia was the hub of a system that stretched from India and Central Asia on one side to northeast Africa and the borderlands of Europe on the other, that is, far beyond Sargon’s empire. Sargon’s official policy was to support and encourage trade. When a colony of Akkadian merchants came under threat in the Anatolian city of Burushanda, he rescued it. But when the old city of Elba, a long-time axis for trade between Mesopotamia and Syria, appeared to be thwarting Akkadian interests, Sargon’s grandson, Naran-Sin, destroyed it. During the Akkadian period (2350-2160 BCE), both state and private enterprise was evident with the state controlling certain commodities such as bulk metals and precious gems.
