Splendid Exchange, A

by Bernstein, William L

  Herodotus also described similar sewn-skin vessels carrying wine “stored in casks made of the wood of the palm-tree.” The ships were “round, like a shield,” made of hide, and propelled by two Armenian merchants down the Euphrates to Babylon. Here, then, is the direct descendant of the earliest cargo ship used in maritime trade, a vessel relatively round in shape—and thus slow—so as to accommodate the most weight with the smallest crew and the minimal amount of building material. (By contrast, warships since ancient times have been narrow and fast, with smaller carrying capacities.)

  The largest of these boats carried about fourteen tons and came equipped with several donkeys, so that at journey’s end the wood frames could be scrapped and the precious skins packed up and carried back to Armenia on the beasts. Herodotus explains:

  It is quite impossible to paddle the boats upstream because of the strength of the current, and that is why they are constructed of hide instead of wood. Back in Armenia with their donkeys, the men build another lot of boats to the same design.10

  After returning to Armenia, the farmers would refit the skins over new frames and load the boats with fresh cargo, and the several-month journey to bartering centers would begin anew. No doubt, the Stone Age hunter-gatherers and farmers of northern Europe also paddled their goods downstream and packed their craft upstream in similar fashion.

  Such were the likely beginnings of trade. Yet out of the desire to attack (or defend) territory was born one of the earliest and most enduring motifs of its history—the exchange of grain from advanced farming communities living in alluvial areas for metals, generally found in less fertile locales.

  Around six thousand years ago, man figured out how to purify the abundant copper ore found just below the layers of the pure metal of the first virgin mines. Not long after, the Ergani mines in mountainous Anatolia (modern-day Asian Turkey) began shipping copper to the early settlements at Uruk (in what is now southern Iraq, about a hundred miles west of Basra). The Euphrates River connected Ergani and Uruk, and although the vessels of the day could easily float several tons of copper downstream to Uruk in a few weeks, the transport of hundreds of tons of grain to Anatolia, against the current, would have been much more problematic.11

  World Trade System, Third Millennium BC

  Later Mesopotamian civilizations took advantage of more favorably placed Persian Gulf mineral sources. The appearance of written records just before 3000 BC offers fleeting glimpses of a massive copper-grain trade that flourished along this route. The land of milk and honey from the ancient Sumerian creation myths was a place known as Dilmun, celebrated for its wealth and probably located in modern-day Bahrain. Its prosperity, however, came not from its relatively fertile soil, but rather from its strategic position as a trading post for copper produced in the land of Magan, in what is today Oman, just outside the entrance to the Persian Gulf at the Strait of Hormuz.

  Not far from modern-day Qalat al-Bahrain, the archaeological excavation of ancient Dilmun’s likely location has yielded a treasure trove of Bronze Age objects. The site covers only about fifty acres but contained a population of about five thousand, probably far more than could have been supported by the city’s agricultural hinterland. Cuneiform texts record that small shipments, usually consisting of a few tons of barley, began to travel down the Gulf toward Dilmun and Magan around 2800 BC. By the end of the millennium, these grain cargoes increased to as much as several hundred tons per shipload. At an astonishingly early point, history affords an ancient equivalent of Las Vegas—a large population living in relatively barren surroundings whose very survival depended on large amounts of food imported from hundreds of miles away.12

  The excavation of Dilmun provides a tantalizing, and often highly personal, window on what the Sumerian trade in grain and copper in the Persian Gulf might have looked like. The town sat on an island and was supplied with a generous spring issuing what the ancients called “sweet,” or fresh, water. By 2000 BC, the city walls enclosed an area almost the size of the biggest Mesopotamian city, Ur. In its center sat a municipal square, one end of which opened on the sea gate; at the other end stood a building filled with seals and scales, almost certainly a customs house. Piled high around the square would have been huge baskets of barley and dates from the banks of the Tigris; the more precious cargo—Mesopotamian cloth as well as ivory and ingots of copper bound for Ur—stood just outside the customs house, guarded by nervous sailors while their officers argued with, bribed, and cajoled the officials inside.

  If the year was 1800 BC, these ingots would probably have been bound for the warehouses of Ea-nasir, the largest copper merchant in Ur, where archaeologists have discovered a large cache of clay tablets detailing this strategic trade.13 One tablet records a shipment of twenty tons of the metal; another bears the complaint of a client, one Nanni:

  You said, “I will give good ingots to Gimil-Sin.” That is what you said, but you have not done so; you offered bad ingots to my messenger saying “Take it or leave it.” Who am I that you should treat me so? Are we not both gentlemen?14

  The curiosity and drive of the first metal-craftsmen who produced the copper in Ea-nasir’s warehouses must have been remarkable. The process in which sulfur, oxygen, chlorine, or carbonate, depending on the type of ore, are removed from it to yield the pure metal—smelting—first saw the light of day in approximately 3500 BC. The metallurgists of the Fertile Crescent soon began mixing their local copper with an exotic imported metal, tin. Not only was the new hammered copper-tin alloy as hard and durable as that of the previous copper-arsenic and copper-antimony alloys, but it melted at a much lower temperature than pure copper. Better yet, it did not bubble and was thus easily cast.

  The magical new alloy was bronze, and it quickly became the standard for a vast array of weapons, cooking utensils, ceremonial objects, and agricultural implements. Not coincidentally, the early Sumerian Ur dynasties, which had pioneered organized agriculture, were also the first to discover the optimal ratio of copper to tin, ten to one, around 2800 BC.15

  Only two things are certain about the Sumerians’ supply of tin: unlike arsenic and antimony, which were locally available and cheap, tin was extremely expensive to procure, and it traveled to them across a great distance. The price of tin was about ten times that of copper, a ratio that held well into the early twentieth century. But where did tin come from? Brittany and Cornwall began producing tin well before 2000 BC, but no record of navigation beyond the Pillars of Hercules (the Strait of Gibraltar) exists until about 450 BC, when a Phoenician navigator, Himilco, ventured into the open Atlantic and brought back tin from these northern European mines.16 Historians hypothesize that tin traveled from northern Europe to the Fertile Crescent via multiple land routes through France, particularly along the valley of the Garonne River, which runs northwest from its sources in the coastal ranges above the Mediterranean to modern-day Bordeaux on the Atlantic. By this period, central Asia was also yielding supplies of the precious metal. All three routes—by sea through Gibraltar, overland through France, and from central Asia—were probably used.

  Here and there, archaeologists have found tantalizing hints. In 1983, the marine archaeologist Don Frey was showing some slides to Turkish sponge divers, who often provide academics with information about sunken wrecks. After the talk, one of them came up to Frey and told him about a pile of ingots on the ocean bottom at the base of a cliff off the western Turkish coastal city of Bodrum, at a site called Ulu Burun. An expedition there uncovered a wreck from about 1350 BC yielding an abundance of ancient cargo: unworked elephant and hippopotamus ivory, early glass, and a mass of copper ingots. Among these exotica they also found some fragments of tin ingots, the earliest known specimens of the metal. Archaeologists estimate that about a ton of tin went down with the vessel, in addition to ten tons of copper; this estimate corresponds to the ideal ratio of copper to tin in bronze: ten to one.17 The nationality of the vessel, let alone the source of the tin, remain unknown.18

 
If the evidence for a long-distance tin trade in the early ancient world sounds highly speculative, that’s because it is. Since the first Sumerian cuneiform tablets date from 3300 BC—just after the earliest evidence of copper smelting but before the appearance of bronze—we have only scant archaeological evidence of trade in goods before that date. But if there was long-range trade in tin around 3000 BC, there must also have existed a similar long-range barter for other valuable materials, such as linen, frankincense, myrrh, tigers, ostrich feathers, and a thousand other sights, sounds, and smells now lost to history.

  While the modern West worries about its dependency on oil from the most politically unstable regions of the planet, the plight of ancient Mesopotamia was far worse. The flat, alluvial land between the rivers possessed only water and soil in excess, and so yielded an abundance of barley, emmer wheat, fish, and wool. This cradle of ancient civilization was, however, nearly completely devoid of the era’s strategic materials: metals, large timbers, and even stone for building. The very survival of Mesopotamia’s great nations—the Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians, and finally the Babylonians—hinged on the exchange of their surplus food for metals from Oman and the Sinai, granite and marble from Anatolia and Persia, and lumber from Lebanon.

  As the ambits of these civilizations spread during the ensuing eras, so did long-distance trade. By the fourth millennium BC, the Fertile Crescent was not the only region of coalesced communities; organized agricultural, military, religious, and administrative activity had also begun to appear in the Indus Valley, in what is now Pakistan. Even before written records, there is evidence of trade between these two regions. Archaeologists have discovered lamps and cups in Mesopotamia dating from the late fourth millennium BC and made from conch shells found only in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Oman. Since transportation costs along this route must have been astronomical, it is not surprising that these shells were found only in palaces or in the graves of high-status individuals.

  By 2500 BC, tastes had changed, as new status symbols—jars, tools, and jewelry made of copper—replaced conch cups and lamps. At this early stage, shipping costs were still prohibitive, and ordinary people used stone, not metal, tools. Even if they could afford the superior copper implements, these high-end products were probably reserved for the ruling elites and the military.

  In another five hundred years, metal became more abundant, and copper tools finally came into widespread use in Mesopotamia. Because of its high value, copper was used for barter (along with cattle and grain) throughout the Bronze Age. Several centuries later, around 2000 BC, increasing copper supplies devalued the metal. This abundance mandated a shift toward the use of silver as a medium of exchange, or as we call it today, “money.”

  The rise of silver as internationally recognized currency itself lubricated commerce, because it facilitated the purchase and sale of other staples. Without it, trade required barter between pairs of commodities. For example, with ten different items, there are forty-five possible exchange pairs (and thus prices). The widespread use of silver money, by contrast, requires only ten different prices—one for each of the different goods. Moreover, the subjectivity of deciding whether a cow was worth fifty or fifty-five chickens made barter too unreliable for large-scale transactions.

  Nanni and Ea-nasir, the two merchants we met a few pages ago, witnessed the rise of early financial markets. The businessmen who ran the trade in metals and grain, the so-called alik-Dilmun (literally, “go-getters of Dilmun”), had to purchase massive amounts of agricultural products and then outfit and man ships large enough to transport them to Dilmun. This necessitated capital from outside investors, who in turn expected a handsome return. A contract executed on a clay tablet gives us a rare insight into one such financial transaction, a loan from a wealthy man identified as “U” to two trading partners, “L” and “N”:

  Two mina of silver, [which is the value of] five gur of oil and thirty garments for an expedition to Dilmun to buy there copper for the partnership of L and N. . . . After safe termination of the voyage, U will not recognize commercial losses; the debtors have agreed to satisfy U with four mina of copper for each shekel of silver as a just price.19

  In other words, U has lent the traders L and N 120 shekels (two mina) of silver, for which he expects to be paid back with 480 mina (roughly a quarter ton) of copper; if the voyage fails, the traders L and N will absorb the loss.

  Whereas there clearly were extensive imports into Mesopotamia, including ivory, jewels, slaves, perfumes, and oils, we know far less about what, beyond grain, was exported. Since Mesopotamia was the world’s richest agricultural area, it must have shipped out vast amounts of “invisible exports,” such as fish and wool.20 The historian Christopher Edens notes that our knowledge of early trade to the north and south of the Tigris and Euphrates is

  one-sided, and built on a narrow foundation of documents that are few in number and disparate in context. . . . The economic documents reflect Mesopotamian but not foreign enterprises. . . . Other sources indicate the arrival of foreign vessels but do not reveal their cargoes.21

  Still, historical fragments suggest a system of roadways and sea-lanes along a three-thousand-mile arc extending from the mountains of Anatolia, southeast throughout Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf, eastward through the near-shore waters of the Indian Ocean, and northeast up present-day Pakistan’s Indus Valley.22 Trade along this vast network—version 1.0 of the World Trade Organization, if you will—must have been indirect (as would be much later connections between imperial Rome and Han China), involving dozens, if not hundreds, of individual journey segments, intermediaries, and transactions. Although the Anatolians and the people of the Indus Valley knew each other’s products, it is not known whether or not they met each other face-to-face; rather, they would have been separated by an unknown number of middlemen. Whenever possible, traders exploited the efficiency of water transport; where there was none, the first animal domesticated for transport, the pack donkey, was used.23

  Government and temple officials in both Sumeria and Egypt carried out these earliest transactions, but by 2000 BC long-range Sumerian commerce had fallen largely into private hands (such as those of Ea-nasir), while in Egypt it remained under the direction of the state. What is unclear is whether this three-thousand-mile trading arc was home to the first “trade diasporas”—permanent colonies of foreign merchants who facilitated commerce between their native and adopted homes, middlemen trusted in the cities in which they were guests as well as in their homelands.

  Tantalizing hints abound, especially a cache of seals, uncovered in Mesopotamia, of a sort commonly used in the Indus Valley; and animal-headed pins, native to Mesopotamia, found in the Indus Valley. The stone seal functioned as the ancient version of shrink-wrap; the merchant placed a lump of wet clay over the closure of a container, then rolled or pressed the seal across the lump, impressing it with his mark. Left to dry and harden, the seal informed the purchaser that the merchant had guaranteed the contents of the container, and that it had not been tampered with in transit. Smaller stone tokens were often used to add to the seal information about the type and quantity of goods.24 Government officials employed their own designs, and both the trading and the governmental seals of different civilizations were quite distinct, so that “Indus Valley” seals found in Mesopotamia strongly suggest the presence of a colony of Indus Valley traders in the land between the rivers.

  The strongest evidence for early trade diasporas is found at the western end of the arc. During the 1990s, the archaeologist Gil Stein excavated a site in Anatolia at Hacinebi Tepe, at the northernmost navigable point of the Euphrates. There, he found evidence for an advanced local culture dating back to 4100 BC, including extensive housing, mortuaries, and, most tellingly, distinctive flat stone seals. His team also uncovered a small area within this site containing artifacts characteristic of Uruk civilization dating to 3700 BC; these artifacts included typical Mesopotamian cylindrical seals and the bones of g
oats carrying the marks of a “Mesopotamian” pattern of butchering. Although it is possible that the colony represented an occupying force from the south, this seems unlikely for several reasons. First, this colony was quite small; second, it was unwalled; third, upstream transport from Mesopotamia was tenuous; and fourth, the Anatolians were at least as militarily advanced as the Mesopotamians. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Stein uncovered the earliest known trade diaspora, perhaps simultaneous with the birth of the local copper industry.25

  The advent of the written word around 3300 BC lifted history’s curtain and revealed an already well-established pattern of long-distance trade, not only in luxury and strategic goods, but in bulk staples such as grain and timber as well.

  By 3000 BC the Persian Gulf served as a major artery of commerce. As civilization spread slowly west into Egypt, Phoenicia, and Greece, another maritime route assumed increasing importance—out the Red Sea and into the Indian Ocean through the Red Sea’s southern exit at Bab el Mandeb, past what is now Yemen. For over four thousand years, the Egypt–Red Sea nexus served as a pivot point of world trade, and with it, Egyptians profited mightily.

  Pre-Ptolemaic Egypt, with abundant quarries and easy access to the copper mines of the nearby Sinai desert, did not depend on trade with other countries for vital strategic materials as much as did the Sumerians. The most important exception to the Egyptians’ self-sufficiency was wood, which they could easily import via the efficient Mediterranean Sea route from Phoenicia, whose lumber was prized for its resistance to decay.

  Egyptian ships plied the Red Sea route as far as the “country of Punt” (modern Yemen and Somalia), over 1,500 miles to the south.26 There are hints of such voyages as early as 2500 BC, and a lucky archaeological find gives us the powerful story of one such expedition occurring around 1470 BC, ordered by Queen Hatshepsut.