Editing Mesopotamia (section)

=== 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>