Editing Mesopotamia (section)

== Economy ==
[[File:Metal production in Ancient Middle East.svg|thumb|upright=1.3|Mining areas of the ancient [[West Asia]].]]

Sumerian temples functioned as banks and developed the first large-scale [[economy|system of loans and credit]]. The Babylonians developed the earliest system of commercial [[banking]]. It was comparable in some ways to modern [[post-Keynesian economics]], but with a more "anything goes" approach.<ref name=Sheila>{{cite journal |url= https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01603477.2005.11051453 |doi= 10.1080/01603477.2005.11051453 |title= Axioms and Babylonian thought: A reply |journal= Journal of Post Keynesian Economics |volume= 27 |issue= 3 |pages= 385–391 |date= April 2005 |last1= Dow |first1= Sheila C. |s2cid= 153637070 |access-date= 7 December 2019 |archive-date= 3 August 2020 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20200803222653/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01603477.2005.11051453 |url-status= live }}</ref>

=== Agriculture ===
{{Main|Agriculture in Mesopotamia}}

Irrigated agriculture spread southwards from the Zagros foothills with the Samara and Hadji Muhammed culture, from about 5,000 BC.<ref name="Cengage Learning, 1 Jan 2010">{{cite book |last1=Bulliet |first1=Richard |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jvsVSqhw-FAC&pg=PA29 |title=The Earth and Its Peoples: A Global History |last2=Crossley |first2=Pamela Kyle |last3=Headrick |first3=Daniel |last4=Hirsch |first4=Steven |last5=Johnson |first5=Lyman |last6=Northup |first6=David |date=1 January 2010 |publisher=Cengage Learning |isbn=978-0-538-74438-6 |access-date=30 May 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210414161613/https://books.google.com/books?id=jvsVSqhw-FAC&pg=PA29 |archive-date=14 April 2021 |url-status=live}}</ref>

In the early period down to [[Ur III]] temples owned up to one third of the available land, declining over time as royal and other private holdings increased in frequency. The word [[Ensí|''Ensi'']] was used to describe the official who organized the work of all facets of temple agriculture. [[Villein]]s are known to have worked most frequently within agriculture, especially in the grounds of temples or palaces.<ref name="H. W. F. Saggs">{{Cite book |author=Saggs |first=H. W. F. – Professor Emeritus of Semitic Languages at University College, Cardiff, Wales |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BPdLxEyHci0C&pg=PA58 |title=Babylonians |publisher=University of California Press |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-520-20222-1 |access-date=29 May 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210414130752/https://books.google.com/books?id=BPdLxEyHci0C&pg=PA58 |archive-date=14 April 2021 |url-status=live}}</ref>

The geography of southern Mesopotamia is such that agriculture is possible only with irrigation and with good drainage, a fact which had a profound effect on the evolution of early Mesopotamian civilization. The need for irrigation led the Sumerians, and later the Akkadians, to build their cities along the Tigris and Euphrates and the branches of these rivers. Major cities, such as Ur and Uruk, took root on tributaries of the Euphrates, while others, notably Lagash, were built on branches of the Tigris. The rivers provided the further benefits of fish, used both for food and fertilizer, reeds, and clay, for building materials. With irrigation, the [[food supply]] in Mesopotamia was comparable to that of the Canadian prairies.<ref>Roux, Georges, (1993) "Ancient Iraq" (Penguin).</ref>

[[File:Fertile Crescent.svg|thumb|A map of the Fertile Crescent including the location of ancient Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.]]
The Tigris and Euphrates River valleys form the northeastern portion of the [[Fertile Crescent]], which also included the Jordan River valley and that of the Nile. Although land nearer to the rivers was fertile and good for [[crops]], portions of land farther from the water were dry and largely uninhabitable. Thus the development of [[irrigation]] became very important for [[settler]]s of Mesopotamia. Other Mesopotamian [[innovation]]s include the control of water by [[dam]]s and the use of aqueducts. Early settlers of fertile land in Mesopotamia used wooden [[plow]]s to soften the [[soil]] before planting crops such as [[barley]], [[onion]]s, [[grape]]s, [[turnip]]s, and [[apple]]s.

Mesopotamian settlers were among the first people to make [[beer]] and [[wine]]. As a result of the skills needed to farm in the Mesopotamian region, farmers did not generally depend on [[slaves]] to do the work.  Although the rivers sustained life, they also destroyed it by frequent floods that ravaged entire cities. The unpredictable Mesopotamian weather was often hard on farmers. Crops were often ruined, so backup sources of food such as cows and lambs were kept. Over time the southernmost parts of Sumerian Mesopotamia suffered from increased salinity of the soils, leading to a slow urban decline and a centring of power in Akkad, further north.

=== Trade ===
Mesopotamian trade with the [[Indus Valley civilisation]] flourished as early as the third millennium BC.<ref>{{cite book
 | last1 = Wheeler
 | first1 = Mortimer
 | author-link1 = Mortimer Wheeler
 | year = 1953
 | title = The Indus Civilization
 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=9cs7AAAAIAAJ
 | series = Cambridge history of India: Supplementary volume
 | edition = 3
 | location = Cambridge
 | publisher = Cambridge University Press
 | publication-date = 1968
 | page = 111
 | isbn = 9780521069588
 | access-date = 10 April 2021
 | quote = In calculating the significance of Indus contacts with Mesopotamia, it is obvious that the economic vitality of Mesopotamia is the controlling factor. Documentary evidence there vouches for vigorous commercial activity in the Sarginid and Larsa phases [...]
 | archive-date = 10 April 2021
 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210410083125/https://books.google.com/books?id=9cs7AAAAIAAJ
 | url-status = live
 }}</ref> Cylinder seals found throughout ANE is evidence of trade between Mesopotamian cities.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wayne |first1=Alexander |last2=William |first2=Violet |title=Trade and Traders of Mesopotamian Ur |journal=Journal of Business and Behavior Sciences |date=February 2012 |volume=19 |issue=2012 |page=2 |url=http://asbbs.org/files/ASBBS2012V1/PDF/A/AlexanderW.pdf}}</ref> Starting in the 4th millennium BC, Mesopotamian civilizations also traded with [[ancient Egypt]] (see [[Egypt–Mesopotamia relations]]).<ref name="Shaw, Ian 1995 p. 109">Shaw, Ian. & Nicholson, Paul, ''The Dictionary of Ancient Egypt,'' (London: British Museum Press, 1995), p. 109.</ref><ref name="Mitchell">{{cite web|last=Mitchell|first=Larkin|title=Earliest Egyptian Glyphs|url=https://archive.archaeology.org/9903/newsbriefs/egypt.html|work=Archaeology|publisher=Archaeological Institute of America|access-date=29 February 2012|archive-date=27 December 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121227081007/http://www.archaeology.org/9903/newsbriefs/egypt.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

For much of history, Mesopotamia served as a [[trade route|trade nexus]] – east-west between Central Asia and the Mediterranean world<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bryce |first1=James |year=1886 |title=The Relations of History and Geography |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YIEkAQAAIAAJ |url-status=live |journal=Littell's Living Age |series=5 |location=Boston |publisher=Littell and Company |volume=169 |page=70 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210411224831/https://books.google.com/books?id=YIEkAQAAIAAJ |archive-date=11 April 2021 |access-date=10 April 2021 |quote=There was also an important trade route through central Asia, which coming down through Persia and Mesopotamia to the Levant, reached the sea in northern Syria [...]. These trade routes assumed enormous importance in the earlier Middle Ages, and upon them great political issues turned.}}</ref>
(part of the [[Silk Road]]), as well as north–south between the Eastern Europe and [[Baghdad]] ([[Volga trade route]]). [[Vasco da Gama]]'s pioneering (1497–1499) of the [[Portuguese discovery of the sea route to India|sea route between India and Europe]] and the opening of the [[Suez Canal]] in 1869 impacted on this nexus.<ref>{{cite book
 | last1 = Bulliet
 | first1 = Richard
 | author-link1 = Richard Bulliet
 | last2 = Crossley
 | first2 = Pamela Kyle
 | author-link2 = Pamela Kyle Crossley
 | last3 = Headrick
 | first3 = Daniel R.
 | author-link3 = Daniel R. Headrick
 | last4 = Hirsch
 | first4 = Steven W.
 | author-link4 = 
 | last5 = Johnson
 | first5 = Lyman L.
 | last6 = Northrup
 | first6 = David
 | year = 2009
 | chapter = Interregional Patterns of Culture and Contact
 | title = The Earth and Its Peoples: A Global History
 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=8kfAAgAAQBAJ
 | edition = 6
 | publisher = Cengage Learning
 | publication-date = 2014
 | page = 279
 | isbn = 9781305147096
 | access-date = 10 April 2021
 | quote = Eurasia's overland trade faded, and merchants, soldiers, and explorers took to the seas.
 | archive-date = 11 April 2021
 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210411224830/https://books.google.com/books?id=8kfAAgAAQBAJ
 | url-status = live
 }}</ref><ref>
{{cite book
 | editor1-last = Brebbia
 | editor1-first = Carlos A.
 | editor2-last = Martinez Boquera
 | editor2-first = A.
 | title = Islamic Heritage Architecture
 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=q37zDQAAQBAJ
 | series = Volume 159 of WIT transactions on the built environment
 | date = 28 December 2016
 | location = Southampton
 | publisher = WIT Press
 | publication-date = 2016
 | page = 111
 | isbn = 9781784662370
 | access-date = 10 April 2021
 | quote = [...] the Silk Road [...] passed through central Asia and Mesopotamia. When the Suez Canal was inaugurated in 1869, trade was diverted to the sea [...].
}}
</ref>