🤯 Did You Know (click to read)
Some Assyrian merchants invested in multiple caravans simultaneously to diversify risk, an early form of portfolio management.
Cuneiform tablets linked to Assyrian merchant networks found at sites such as Umm al-Marra and especially Kanesh in Anatolia reveal a commercial system operating around 1900 to 1800 BCE. Merchants from the city of Assur established trading colonies known as karum, where they exchanged tin and textiles for silver. Contracts detailed profit-sharing agreements, transport insurance, and interest-bearing loans. Some tablets document disputes over missing shipments and delayed repayments. The correspondence shows that merchants used family firms to distribute risk across generations. Caravans traveled roughly 1,000 kilometers between Assur and central Anatolia, navigating political boundaries through negotiated privileges. These records predate classical banking systems by more than a millennium. They demonstrate that Assyrian economic expansion began as commerce before it became conquest.
💥 Impact (click to read)
Systemically, these trade tablets show that early Assyrian power rested on financial networks rather than territorial domination. The karum system created semi-autonomous commercial enclaves governed by written contracts. Silver functioned as a standardized medium of value, enabling price comparison across regions. Interest rates recorded in the tablets reveal regulated credit markets. The need to protect trade routes likely influenced later military organization. By documenting partnerships and liabilities, merchants created enforceable expectations across distance. The Assyrian Empire later inherited administrative habits forged in these early trading experiments.
For individual merchants, profit depended on weather, banditry, and political stability far beyond their control. Letters between family members reveal anxieties about lost caravans and fluctuating prices. The irony is that a civilization remembered for siege warfare first mastered spreadsheets in clay. Commercial literacy empowered private actors before it empowered kings. Bankruptcy and inheritance disputes appear alongside successful ventures, humanizing ancient capitalism. These tablets preserve the voices of entrepreneurs navigating uncertainty. Long before imperial armies marched, accountants were already calculating margins.
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