The Ur III - Old Babylonian Periods

Ur III Period - State and Private Merchants, Gift-Giving
The Ur III Period begins after the fall of the Akkadian Empire and the stabilization of southern Mesopotamia after ridding the area of hostile incursions.  The Ur III Dynasty, as its name designates, resided in the city of Ur.  A series of rulers held dominion over most of southern and northern Mesopotamia, and instated several important economic and social policies.  Among these policies were the standardization of weights and measures, new tax systems, and a re-invigoration of the Sumerian language.  The Ur III kings maintained relationships with the entities outside of their control, and in several cases were known to send gifts to foreign royalty.  One notable instance is of an Ur III ruler sending his daughter to marry the king of Marhashi.   Gift-exchange, especially of rare and elite items like stone vessels and metals, was an important mechanism in the ancient Near East in the movement of goods.  It is really only in the Ur III period, however, that we begin to have evidence of this type of exchange going on. 

Old Babylonian Period - Private Merchants and Merchant Families
The Old Babylonian Period arose from a backdrop of quarreling, disjointed city states which were left to pick up the pieces after the fall of the Ur III dynasty.  The famous Mesopotamian king, Hammurabi, established his dynasty from the seat of the city of Babylon and regained centralized control over the southern Mesopotamian area.  He and his successors, like the Akkadian and Ur III kings, led campaigns to conquer the surrounding areas.  Specifically, Hammurabi focused on securing the Euphrates communication route running north-south and gaining control of central Mesopotamia.  This military expansion came hand-in-hand with a renewed interest in the trade routes via the Persian Gulf, centering on the island Dilmun (modern-day Bahrain).

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Merchants and Business

Though common today, the idea of people acting as anything other than producers or consumers was a radical notion in human economic development.  Merchants made their living by facilitating the transport and exchange of goods, without producing or consuming any of the goods they were managing.  This institution changed the way that ancient Near Eastern civilizations interacted with one another culturally, politically, and, of course, economically.

Private Merchants
An economically significant portion of merchants was not under the control of the Babylonian state or temple institutions.  These merchants operated primarily via profit and loss.
For the private merchant, the state was an important customer, but not their sole investor.  Private merchants acquired investments and loans to purchase items, which were then brought back to their home city-states and either immediately distributed to buyers or stored for future customers.  Temples and state institutions did not have to manage a constant amount of merchants and were at little risk of losing capital.

State Merchants
Some merchants were administered by state or temple institutions.  Investments in the merchants' trading missions (including loans) placed the risk on the state and allowed merchants to operate under less than favorable circumstances.  These merchants were responsible for using state/ temple funds to go and acquire specifically-requested items from these institutions.  Common examples of state-requested materials include copper, stone for statues and vessels, and precious gemstones for dedicating to temples.
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Merchant Families
Professions passed down through family lines was a common concept in the ancient world, and mercantilism was no exception.  In lieu of state-supported merchant institutions, family units often became nucleated businesses with members performing various duties: the domestic household was in charge of procuring or producing goods, which then often fathers and sons would transport to their end destinations.  As several accounts from Old Assyrian trading colonies based out of northern Mesopotamia show, women of these households procured loans, arranged for the delivery of material, manufactured the goods to be sold, and kept track of the family’s accounts.  ​

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Weights and Measurements

Image of hematite Old Babylonian weights ranging from 1/16 shekel (.4 grams) to 1/2 mina (245 grams). (The Schøyen Collection)

A graduated series of weights from the Indus Valley, the smallest weighing 0.856 grams. (Harappa Archaeological Research Project)

During the Old Babylonian period, there were two weighing systems. In Dilmun, the weight standard used minas , whereas in Ur, the weight standard used both minas and talents.  One Dilmun mina weighted 8/3  Ur minas.  Therefore, Dilmun minas are suggested to weigh about 1,350 grams, while Ur minas are suggested to weigh about 500 grams. One Babylonian talent was comprised of 60 Ur minas; a talent was about 30.3 kilograms or about 67 pounds. Minas also followed this rule of 60; one mina was comprised of 60 shekels. A shekel weighed about 8.4 grams each.

Weights found by in Dilmun weighed 1.8, 13.5, 13.9, 27, 171, 670, 1,370 grams; the weights follow  the ratio of 1:8:8:16:100:400:800. Multiplying the weights by the ratios, (13 5 grams x 100 = 1,350 grams) indicates an average about 1,3500 grams. This multiple of 13.5 is also present in the ancient cultures in the Indus valley. Similar weights of about 13.5 grams have been found at Mohenjo-Daro, along with frequent multiples of 13.5 grams with ratios of  ¼, ½, 2, 4, 10, 20, 40, 100 and 200.
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The Silver Standard

Silver had multiple purposes in the ancient near east, however, one of its most important and widely used forms was as a means of exchange. By the twenty-first century B.C.E. silver was widely used as unit of value as well as unit of exchange for both institutions and individuals. Often, commodities were priced in silver as a way of record keeping.

During the time of Sargon II through the Old Babylonian period, there was a centralization of power that enabled silver to be used as a form of taxation. Silver could also be bought and traded like any other anther commodity, like gold or bronze. Bala (term of office) was used to described resourced owed to the crown during the Ur III period.  Silver was used as currency or as a backing for deposits as an agent rather than deposit for safe keeping. Multiple texts from Umma indicate that lands leased to the state at the time could be paid in silver. These payment transactions of silver were then recorded in by entering the the name of the tax officer or merchant who was responsible for collecting the lease payment. The recorded transactions made it much easier to determine whether people had paid the state of not. The goods received by the tax collector were always valued in silver- the merchant then supplied the state with either silver, gold, lard, sausages, copper, tin, bitumen, or spices.
 
Ancient Sumerian Proverbs also almost exclusively associate silver with merchants. The merchant’s subsequent unpopularity with the public had to do with their intimate connection with silver as money.

Silver Hoard From Khafaje, Iraq

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Dilmun and the Gulf-Type Seals

Dilmun - the Center of Commerce
First suspected from written evidence in ancient texts and then confirmed by archaeological excavation, the oft-mentioned land of Dilmun is now understood as modern-day Bahrain.  Dilmun served as a market for foreign traders coming through the Gulf to sell their wares.  As sea-faring technology strengthened, merchants from Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, Oman, and elsewhere gathered at Dilmun to exchange goods, especially copper.  Though materials exchanged at Dilmun were both finished and unfinished, the trade in raw copper dominated the economy of the island.  Functioning as a trade entrepot, Dilmun effectively controlled any trade which was carried out through sea routes via the Persian Gulf.  These routes are especially crucial during the Ur III and Old Babylonian periods, as the land routes stretching across the Iranian Plateau dwindled in importance.

Map showing the island of Dilmun, modern Bahrain (circled)

The Seals
One of the key pieces of information about the traders of this era are their seals.  Circular and square stamp seals were very different from many of the types from Mesopotamia at this point in time, and in general are grouped under the category of "Dilmun Seals".   Specifically Indus-type seals are difficult to separate from Gulf-type seals unless they possess inscriptions in the ​Harappan language.  ​

Indus-type seals with characteristic elements such as bulls and Harappan writing.

31-43-75 | Stamp Seal. Iraq, Ur.

Sources

• Crawford, H.  2005.  "Mesopotamia and the Gulf: The History of a Relationship."  Iraq 67, No. 2.  
• Foster, Benjamin R. "Commercial Activity in Sargonic Mesopotamia." Iraq 39, no. 1 (1977): 31-33. 
• Garfinkle, Steven. "SILVER AND GOLD: MERCHANTS AND THE ECONOMY OF THE UR III STATE." In On the Third Dynasty of Ur: Studies in Honor of Marcel Sigrist, edited by Michalowski Piotr, 63-70. American Schools of Oriental Research, 2008.
• Hallo, William W. Origins: The Ancient Near Eastern Background of Some Modern Western Institutions. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996. 
• Laursen, S.T. 2010. "The westward transmission of Indus Valley sealing technology: origin and development of the ‘Gulf Type’ seal and other administrative technologies in Early Dilmun, c.2100–2000 BC". Arabian archaeology and epigraphy, Vol. 21.
• Moorey, P.R.S. 1999.  Ancient Mesopotamia Materials & Industries.  Urnana Lake, Indiana.  Eisenbrauns.  
• Oppenheim, L. 1954. "Sea-faring Merchants of Ur." 
• Possehl, G.L 1995.  "Sea-faring Merchants of Meluhha". South Asian Archaeology.  
• Postgate, J.N. 1992.   Early Mesopotamia: Society and Economy at the Dawn of History.  Routledge: New York.
• Potts, D.T. 
  
• Powell ​
• Renfrew, Colin. 1975. “Trade as Action at a Distance: Questions of Integration and Communication”. In Ancient Civilizations and Trade. J. Sabloff and C.C. Lamberg Karlovsky eds. Santa Fe University of New Mexico Press: pp.30-59.
• Zaccagnini, Carlo. "The Dilmun Standard and Its Relationship with Indus and near Eastern Weight Systems." Iraq 48 (1986): 19-20.