History of Money, Banking, and Trade
A historical look at the development and evolution of money, banking, and trade. From the ancient civilizations to the present.
History of Money, Banking, and Trade
Episode 2. Trade, Laws and Wars of Sumer
Prepare to step into the past and immerse yourself in the vibrant world of ancient Sumer. The world's first banks were far from the high-rises we see today - they were temples, buzzing hives of trade where people would deposit their valuables and receive goods in return. Along with the Damkaras, traders working on behalf of these temples, we'll explore how wealth was stored, redistributed, and the intense political pressure that could erupt into war over tribute payments.
Breathe life into the dry subject of finance as we trace the evolution of early Sumerian and Akkadian financial systems. Hear tales of how borrowing and lending could mean the difference between life and death, and marvel at the ingenious verification methods of the time, including tokens, clay cuneiform writing, and hollow clay balls. We'll dissect the implications of silver's transformative role in local economies and the advent of measuring goods in the value of silver - not to mention the world's first instance of compound interest, recorded on a clay cone!
Finally, we'll unveil the Code of Ur-Nammu, the world's oldest surviving law code, and explore how it set the standard for currency and established legal codes for trade. We'll confront the hard realities of how poor farming techniques and dwindling trade under the rule of the Guitians plunged Mesopotamia into a mini Dark Age. But even in darkness, there's light: We'll celebrate the advanced mathematical society of Sumer, whose contributions to our civilization continue to shape our world today. So buckle up, history buffs - this journey through time and trade is one you won't want to miss.
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Welcome Podcast Listener. I am Mike D, and this is the History of Money, banking and Trade Podcast. My goal is to provide you with information pertaining to the history and evolution of trade, along with money, banking and credit, from ancient civilizations to the present. Through these historical discussions, I hope you are entertained and find that learning from past developments in money and banking makes it a lot easier to understand our current capital market structure and international trade, but, more importantly, why we got to where we are today, economically and politically. In the end, I really hope we both can learn a lot as we move through time, from ancient civilizations all the way through the development of financial innovations, along with the causes and solutions to the most recent market crashes. So let's go and take this journey together. Trade networks have been thoroughly developed as traders traveled up and down and east and west, shipping merchandise on river boats, and then from there traders would transfer their goods to donkeys and they would drive caravans to various trading destinations, from Bahrain, in the south, to the Levant to even modern day Afghanistan. Trade was flourishing and the economies were growing, and usually the direct beneficiary would have been the temple itself, and it's important to note that the temple was often viewed almost like an early factory in Mesopotamia. The temple often manufactured large sums of clothing and cloth, and most of this was done by female weavers in large sum. One particular temple had up to 13,000 women working in and around the temple itself, producing massive quantities of goods that were ultimately used in trade with people in distant land with different cultures and different backgrounds and different languages, and this trade allowed the people in Sumer and Akkad to bring back to the region the metals that they needed, the precious stones, oils and other natural resources, including timber from the Levant. The people that acted as traders in this time period were known as the Damkaras, and these traders or Damkaras often worked on behalf of the temple. So an example of how this works is a trader might receive leather, skins or finished garments or even raw wool from the temple, and he would often exchange it for other raw materials or other commodities, such as copper or ivory or just basically any desired good, for that matter, and from there the trader might travel to another location and trade other goods to bring back home.
Speaker 1:Now, often a trader's profit might be in some sort of grain or other commodity, and what the trader would do is they would often tie the portion of the profits to the temple itself. And even if a trade mission was unsuccessful, the trader would often still tie it to the temple because he would want to get good luck or good karma for the next expedition. So if he didn't tie, the next expedition would be unsuccessful. If he tied, the next expedition would be successful. So either way, the temple is going to get their pay and the tithing by the merchants would basically be used to feed the temple workers themselves. So the women that are weaving the raw wool would be paid in part from the tithing of the merchants that were out there trading in long distance trade. Also, the excess goods that were produced by the temple were often used to purchase goods such as copper and tin that were the vital ingredients to making bronze and once again, this is the bronze aid. You had to make bronze in order to be successful in defending your land or even conquering additional land, or to make tools. And I kind of touched upon it briefly here and there.
Speaker 1:But it appears from certain tablets recovered in Sumer and Akkad that the temples in the palaces really took the place of a banker. They advanced certain commodities to merchants for a later payment upon return from a voyage or at harvest time for domestic sales, for payment and crops. In the early stages of long distance trade, the early merchants were given rations which essentially acted as salaries. In addition, the temples or the palaces supplied the merchants with donkeys, as they were utilized in the over the land transport. So once you got to the edge of the water through the river system, or even if you went through the Persian Gulf, you would need donkeys to ultimately carry the goods to the final destination. And it is in these times that merchants used their own capital along with the additional capital supplied by private backers, and these private backers were typically relatives.
Speaker 1:It is clear that the way one would become an entrepreneur back then was to have a relationship with the temple or the palace. In other words, the Mesopotamian economies were mixed economies and therefore weren't really strictly private enterprise. It was a mix between private and government enterprise. But in the grand scheme of things it's kind of like reminds me of the Russian oligarchs. You only became a Russian oligarch if you had ties to the Communist Party in Russia when it dissolved. Without the political ties you were never going to be rich or, at the very least, a successful merchant or entrepreneur.
Speaker 1:So ultimately, banking in ancient Mesopotamia basically started as a place for people to put their valuables into a secure location. So it's not unlike a modern safe deposit box in a way, and you kind of have to understand. During these times, often the most secure locations were the temple or even the royal palace. The temples and other royal palaces were the important centers to which commodities were deposited and, like I said previously, these deposited commodities, if they were controlled by the state, would be redistributed back to the people on an as needed basis, or at least when the people in the temple would have calculated when the items would be redistributed back to the people. But also, too, the temple and the palace was where the wealthy and the other elites would have kept their extra commodities that they had accumulated over the years, and this could have also included silver or other precious stones. So the interesting thing is, the temples or the palace would serve as the bank of the city itself, as it was the depository of gold and silver, along with other precious commodities or precious stones. And of course, the major risk during this time period was certain city states like, say, babylon or Assyria. If they grew stronger and more powerful, they would often go to war with each other if one did not pay tribute to the other. So losing a war to another city state meant that your temple or bank can be looted by the enemy and you could be wiped out completely. Because back in those days plunder was often a business decision. One had to make sure that their bank or their temple was a safe place to store their precious commodities or silver or gold.
Speaker 1:The cool part was it was during this time period that the first known case of interest was being used. In the Sumerian language the word for interest was mash or mash. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing it correctly, but mash was also the term for calves. You know, baby cows. This is an ancient society, so agriculture was still the main business and wealth was often measured by how much livestock that you owned. And the Uruk accounting system made it quite easy for the Sumerians and the Akkadians to lend or buy and sell quantities of goods. So, for example, you lend someone a herd of 100 cattle for one year. You expect to be repaid with more than 100 cattle. It is only natural to expect a growth rate in the herd during the year, as you expect calves to be born throughout the year. So the natural rate of increase of their herd's wealth would equal the rate of reproduction of the livestock. So the idea of interest seems to be a natural one for a pastoral society. You lend out 100 head of cattle. Six are born in the year. You get back 106 cattle. Your interest rate is 6% for the year. So you can see how the word mash would also equal the word for interest, because it was a common correlation between the interest rate, which would be the growth rate of certain cattle during the year.
Speaker 1:But also, as the economies grew and the deposit base of the temple grew, they were able to make more and more loans from that deposit base. One of the loans that they would do is they would loan out the seeds themselves and they would have to be repaid after the harvest. So a farmer could go to the temple and borrow the seeds and then plant the seeds and then repay the temple at harvest the amount on the loan. And typically the way it works is they would actually get a receipt from the temple and on this receipt for the loan they would actually make out the rate of interest. The rate itself would be fixed.
Speaker 1:Typically Most loans were usually between the temple and the individual. But the first documented case between two individuals having a loan and where the temple was not included was documented around 2450 BCE, so we're talking before even Sargon, and this documented loan indicated that one person loaned silver and barley to another. So it appears that by this time the debt between two individuals was starting to become part of the Sumerian and Akkadian financial system, and it's quite possible that personal loans were first used when one individual owed the temple or a palace a certain amount of commodities in which the borrower did not have presently. So a person borrows a commodity, or whatever it is, from the temple. The temple has a due date. The due date comes. You don't have the amount to pay back the temple. So now what you do is you go to somebody else who has an excess amount and they'll borrow from them to pay the temple itself.
Speaker 1:But one cannot underestimate how important this was to the development of finance and the economy as a whole. Without interest one would not have the incentive to loan out anything unless they could be compensated for not using their assets for personal consumption, and interest is more or less just a payment for the risk that one takes in that they might not be repaid. So, just like modern finance, your interest rate would ultimately depend upon how much risk you're taking. The more risk, the higher the interest rate. The lower the risk, the lower interest rate. Of course, this is the modern view of finance, but back in these days they didn't really have that modern sense to them. So for the most part, interest rates would have been fixed, and this would have been the case was extremely vital during this time period. So, for example, if a farmer realizes his grain has spoiled, he would literally starve to death. If he could not find the ability to borrow grain from another individual who had an excess amount, the farmer would use the grain to consume and then he would repay back the lender at the next harvest. Economists would refer to this as smoothing the consumption, and I don't think people fully understand or appreciate the fact that the ability to borrow and lend can literally mean the difference between life and death.
Speaker 1:And the first documented case of compound interest was documented on a clay cone that is about the size of a pineapple, from around 2400 BCE. As I mentioned previously, the distance between two cities can be quite small and, as such, cities would often war with each other. An example would be the cities of Lagash and Uma went to war over a seized fertile strip of land between the two cities. The cone indicated that Uma owned the land for about two generations. A generation could be anywhere from 20 to 30 years, so we're talking 40 to 60 years in which Uma owned this disputed land. The Lagash ruler eventually retook the land and then called for reparations as a result in the form of back rents with compound interest at a rate of 33.3%, which was the standard going rate at the time. Remember I said interest rates were generally fixed back in this time period. So the end result was Uma owned Lagash 4.5 trillion with a T trillion liters of grain. Due to the compounding of the interest, this is well over 500 times the amount the US produces. So this is literally impossible to meet. So the idea of the compounding interest is based upon the fact that the profits from one year would be reinvested back into the farmland for the next year. And of course, these calculations are absolutely absurd because this assumes an ever increasing amount of seeds along with the corresponding increase in the farmland as well. In the end, basically, the cone indicated that Lagash is basically telling Uma that we own you now. So essentially, if Lagash can calculate the compound interest, that means that the first accountants would have worked out the rates of interest when doing their calculation.
Speaker 1:And it's worth noting that the first accountants would have actually worked out of the temple storehouse themselves. At the temple they would have used tokens to count the grain and other commodities as it arrived and left the temple. They would have wrote down on the clay tablets a record to the back and forth of the token, which themselves were recordings of the comings and goings of the items, such as livestock or the grain or even jars of honey. And before the writing got more complex, the first such tablets were just impressions of the tokens themselves. So they would have been pressing the hard token right into the soft clay tablet. In addition, the world's first written contracts were recorded in the temples as essentially just futures contracts, a record of a future obligation to pay.
Speaker 1:The combination of the tokens and the clay cuneiform writing led to a verification device, a hollow clay ball which acted like an envelope. On the outside of the hollow clay ball, which was known as Ebola, the parties to the contract would write down the details of the contract, including the resources that were to be repaid and the contract itself was the direct result of a growing economy and growing population. So the idea of a contract in previous societies, in which settlements were quite small, was not really needed because you knew your neighbors and a certain amount of trust was already in place. As these small towns grew into small cities, a contract was needed because you may not know the other counterparty. So the idea of a written contract was a natural evolution of population and economic growth. So, getting back to the contract, on the inside of the clay ball would be tokens representing the deal itself. So the parties to the contract could see the deal itself on the outside of the clay ball but if needed they could just break it open and just verify the contract by what was on the inside of the clay ball. So in essence, what they did is they created a reconciliation process and if you really think about it, a contract in the ancient Sumerian and Acadian days is kind of an interesting thought, because the reason why I say this is because every single financial instrument today is nothing more than a contract. If you buy a bond or shares in a particular company, what you are buying is a contract. So when you come to think of it, the ancient Sumerians and Acadians were the first people to write financial instruments. So the contract on the outside of the envelope and the tokens on the inside of the envelope, which were just clay balls, they verified each other In each case.
Speaker 1:The transactions that were recorded on them were essentially just repayments of the commodities that had been loaned. The tablets were evidently drawn up and retained by the lender itself and, like I said, they're often in a sealed container and also, to make it even more official, a seal sometimes would be rolled over wet clay to indicate that the contents were still in fact intact. In addition, often the seal could be viewed as a signature of the party. The seal had been around since the Ubeid period, which was 4000 BCE, all the way back to 5500 BCE. For some reason, whenever I think about the seal clay, I tend to think of Game of Thrones. For some reason, I'm not sure why, and what I think of is in the show, each important person had their own distinctive wax seal when they sent letters to foreign dignitaries. So this is kind of what comes to mind when I think of this, but it's obviously completely different because you're rolling clay and this is in Game of Thrones. It was wax, so it is different, but you get the point, but anyway.
Speaker 1:So the Uruk tokens took things even a bit further. So they were used to keep track of counting lots of different quantities and they could be used to both add and subtract. In essence, it was an early general ledger system that tracked things such as debts that were incurred and were written in the ledger, indicating how much grain or silver is owed in some instances, and also the debts themselves could become liquid currency as they were transferable, hence pay the bearer of rather than the name creditor. So an individual who has this debt and knows that they can get grain on demand could take this to say, a brewer and get beer, and that person that has the brewery could use the actual clay tablet to go and claim the underlying grain. And also there were tablets that would have demand on silver as well.
Speaker 1:The famous Assyriologist Polanyi believes that the accounting in Sumer and Akkad centered on the need of the temples and the palaces to be able to budget, balance, control, transfer and clear transactions in kind. More importantly, polanyi believed that these accounting and banking practices were developed not as an expedient in the exchange economy but as a means to which to make redistribution more effective. So in other words, it's not an accounting and banking system in the modern sense, but it does lay the groundwork for privatized economies where two private merchants are trading or making deals. But nonetheless, the economies were growing and the complexity was growing and the math behind the interest calculations was growing. In fact, a tablet was recovered near the city of Drehem from around 2000 BCE.
Speaker 1:This tablet itself calculated a growth rate of cattle over 10 years. In addition, it calculated the amount of foodstuffs from the cattle, such as milk and cheese, over that 10 year period. It also determined the value of the productions in terms of silver. So what the tablet shows is a continued growth rate of the cattle and the foodstuffs in a chart. So ultimately, a modern analyst could view this in the modern sense as an earnings and growth model, as the livestock represent the investment and the sale of the cattle byproduct of the milk and cheese as it's earning Now. This was ultimately used by the temple and the palace to determine the growth rate at which the city would grow and still support a population. Now it's worth noting that this tablet's calculations were based on perfect conditions, whereas there are no death in the herd, and each male and female can produce one cow per year. So the tablet does not take in account certain factors that would reduce the headcount and also the production of the goods as well.
Speaker 1:Now, this isn't a perfect forecasting model by any means. It does go to show you that over 4,000 years ago the temple was produced in financial models for future enterprise. From a modern sense, it's quite fascinating that they would have created these, and also, from a modern sense, we might snicker at the fact that they were creating models that were based on perfect assumptions. Now, current models would try to factor in certain deviations in the population growth, but in the grand scheme of things, our current financial models are almost always incorrect anyway. So it is quite impressive that even back in the Sumerian and Akkadian days that they would have developed these models, even if they were not going to be accurate to begin with.
Speaker 1:So ultimately, as trade grew and silver became more of an accepted means of measuring the underlying commodities, the traders themselves would have had silver on deposit with certain merchants in the cities where they bought and sold goods. So while silver was used as a measure of the underlying assets, in most circumstances trade was still taking place in kind. So the trade would have actually typically been in the barley or the copper in which the trade was taking place in. So silver a lot of times wouldn't have been exchanged, it would have been just a unit of measure in the underlying trade itself. But with that being said, it was not uncommon for traders to have silver on deposit with merchants in cities in far away places.
Speaker 1:But in the grand scheme of things, I find silver to be a fascinating thing. The acceptance of silver is weird because it's based on essentially social values and irrational trust. I mean, why silver? You can't eat it, can't make clothing from it, you can't live in it or you can't even use it as a building, for raw materials and, honestly, it's not even suitable for tools. So it serves little to no practical purposes. Yet it was an important means to get desired goods or to hoard wealth and increase prestige, in other words to become rich and important in societies. From the days of Sumer, even through the Roman Empire, silver would have been the means for acquiring more wealth or at least displaying your wealth.
Speaker 1:People in Mesopotamia had a major disadvantage because there was no silver native to the local area, so all the silver had to be imported from somewhere else. So, unlike the Greeks, the Greeks were lucky because they found a huge silver mine within approximately 40 miles of Athens, so they could generate wealth just by digging the stuff out the ground. The Mesopotamians couldn't do that, and also, too, with silver, it's not like it just became a medium of exchange. This was something that took years and years and centuries to develop. The idea of measuring goods in the value of silver didn't happen overnight. This was a slow, gradual process. So as the growth of silver grew, so did the growth of the local economies and personal debt.
Speaker 1:The palace had to keep a close eye on this, because they did not want another lagash from happening. They didn't want the commoners to be so mired in debt that they had to resort to selling themselves or their kids into slavery and, most importantly, they did not want the people to rise up against the powerful people or the temples to a lesser extent. So, periodically, rulers signed clean slate decrees that cancelled all the rural but not the commercial debt. And since this was a literate society, the kings and the palace would have had written historical records on hand. So my guess is the kings fully understood what can happen if people got so mired in debt that they had to resort to extremes. So these clean slate decrees typically occurred at the beginning of the first full term of the king, but they could be proclaimed at times of military conflict or even crop failure, which would make sense because in those particular cases people would not have had a means to raise any kind of crops or have access to any kind of sort of income or, at the very least, produce any goods, such as barley or, if they're craftsmen, whatever kind of particular craft that they do produce. So the idea of having these clean slate decrees during a time when people did not have a means to pay absolutely made a lot of sense. And also, too, the kings really are more or less politicians of the day, so they want to keep people happy, and unhappy populace could lead to a lot of bad things. So keeping people happy would lead to more stability.
Speaker 1:And the reason why these kings and the temples kind of understood what was happening as far as debt was they had a very advanced mathematical society during these times. So Sumer was the birthplace of so many different things, but mathematics might be one of their greatest contributions to human society. And basically what it was is. It was initially developed largely as a response to the aggregate needs when their civilization settled into small towns and then developed agriculture, so possibly by the 6th millennium BCE, math starts to become a more important aspect of the fact that they needed this to basically track their growing society and their growing trade. They needed mathematics just for the measurement of the plots and land and the taxation of the individuals and other commercial transactions. So you can kind of see everything kind of really start to build upon itself. And without a functionable mathematics idea in place it would have been virtually impossible for the Sumerian cities and then the Akkadian cities to really grow and thrive. And ultimately mathematics grew right alongside of the Sumerian culture in itself. So as the cities and commerce thrived, math also thrived right along with it.
Speaker 1:And I'm not sure if it's like a chicken or egg scenario or what, but really you couldn't have one without the other. And as we discussed previously, the pictorial objects were replaced by cuneiform equivalents. Also, it's worth noting that a rudimentary model of an abacus was probably in use in Sumer from as early as 2700 BCE. So they kind of really understood mathematics and were developing a means to create tools to easily help the local people, especially the merchant class and then the banking class, to easily count up whatever they needed to count. So if there's a transaction and a larger transaction for that matter, they can use the abacus and the buyer and the seller could easily agree upon the final calculation of whatever it may be.
Speaker 1:And the abacus may have been vitally important, especially considering the fact that the Hindu Arabic numeral system is going to be thousands of years away. And the beauty of that system is it made doing large calculations a lot easier. And if you're wondering what an abacus is, you probably heard of it, maybe you forgot, but you probably actually use one when you were a kid. An abacus is nothing more than a string of beads and you just move them from one side to the next and that does your calculations for you. I think I first used an abacus when I was probably in the first grade or whatever. But it's not something people think of nowadays because obviously we have calculators and we have these powerful computers, but back in the Sumerian days this was their calculator of the day.
Speaker 1:And another thing about Sumerian math was they based their system on 60, not the base 10 that we're accustomed to today. Why did the Sumerians pick 60 as their base of their numerical numbering system? Well, that's not really known for sure, but it is believed that it represents the fact that each finger has three zones, you know, between the knuckles, and if you take the three zones on each finger, count them up and you'll get 12. Now you have five fingers in the other hand and you can just multiply that 12 by 5 and you get 60. That's the only explanation I've read. There could be a different reason, but that appears to be the most logical, or at least accepted reason why they use 60 as their base. In case you've ever wondered why there are 60 seconds in a minute and then 60 minutes in an hour, well, that's the base 60. We get our time directly from how the Sumerians track time.
Speaker 1:And also to, the Sumerians created the 360 degree in a circle, so that's why it's 360 degrees. This is probably something you probably really don't think about much, but it's something you probably thought about at least once in your life and you've just kind of probably said whatever, that's what it is, but that actually came directly from the Sumerian. Also to the Sumerians, they created a year based on a 360 day schedule, so each month consisted of 30 days. It's not obviously 100% accurate, but it was pretty darn close. In addition, sumerian numbers use a true place value system where the digits written in the left column represent the larger values, much as in the modern decimal system. The biggest difference is they use the base 60, not the base 10. Later, babylonian tablets dating from 1800 BCE, so just a few hundred years into the future. From this point they actually advanced math even further by covering topics such as fractions, algebra, methods for solving linear and quadratic equations.
Speaker 1:You can see that these people in ancient Mesopotamia they really put the human race on the fast track as far as writing and mathematics. Yet I always kind of go back to this it's this region of the world is not really taught to, at least the American kids, that this is the birthplace of Western civilization. The Samaritans created so many things that we used to this day and it all really started there. And all this really was used to help develop the money system and the banking system, which ultimately helped trade and help commerce, and it just helped the quality of life in general. So the fact that they had all these systems in place meant that people a few thousand years previous to this society could always fear the fact that they might starve to death. We've reached a point now in the Samarian culture that would have at least reduced the risk of something like that happening. Of course, ultimately the Samarian people and the Mesopotamian people in large would have ultimately had to worry about if there was climate change or even worse than the neighbors. So that right there is probably one of the biggest fears that the people of Samaria would have had, because they've gotten to a point where they can facilitate trade and create excess amount of goods. But in the grand scheme of things, samarians are like every other people. Every culture is pretty much always going to be at war at one point or another. So the ancient people of Samaria were no different.
Speaker 1:In fact, you know, for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, the settled cities, especially the farmers in and around the settled cities, feared the shepherds in the mountains. The farmers were essentially peaceful, hard-working individuals. The shepherd's job was to just lead the flock and find good fields so that the herd can eat. The shepherds really didn't have a lot to do except guide the flock, but the farmers, on the other hand, were constantly busy, as they always had to be in their fields, tended to their crops. Another thing was the shepherds had to defend their flock from deadly animals, and these animals could be. They could be tigers, they could be lions, and they might not be in that part of the world nowadays, but they were most definitely in that region of the world. But probably their biggest threat wasn't some wild animal, it was just another human being. The fellow human is the most dangerous animal for anybody. The shepherds themselves had to be fearless and because of that the farmer was absolutely terrified of the shepherd as such.
Speaker 1:The shepherds could basically just go into any town or on any farm and just plunder at will, and it is the Goody and people in particular who are the people the Sumerians and the Cadiens fear the most, as they were shepherds who basically plundered constantly. In addition, the Sumerians and the Cadiens noted that they didn't worship the right gods. They would burn villages when they attacked and then they'd steal cattle. In fact, little is known of their origins, material culture or even their language, as it wasn't related to any languages in the region. So it wouldn't have been related to the Sumerian language, which would have made sense because the Sumerian language was a language isolate and it was not related to the Acadian language. So it appears that this was maybe another language isolate. But the thing is is they really didn't have any written records, so the only way people would know anything about them was through what was written by the Acadian people or if there was any kind of artifacts left in certain settlements that the Goody and people would have settled. So when push comes to shove, basically nothing is known about these people except for the people of Sumer and Akkad feared them.
Speaker 1:In fact, there was a letter that survived this region of an Acadian letter that was dated from the reign of King Shah Khali Sharree, which he would have ruled from 2217 BCE to 2193 BCE, to give you an idea of the time period we're talking about here. And the letter was written by an Acadian Lord who owned land on the borders of the Goodyan territory and in this letter he tells his workers to ignore the Goody attacks and just keep on working. And obviously it is assumed that when he is telling his workers to just ignore these people that were slaughtering people, that he himself was probably doing this from a secure, safe location, far from where the Goody people would have been attacking. And the letter itself goes on to say Don't tell me, the Goody enemies are around and I cannot cultivate the field Now. I swear on the life of King Shah Khali Sharree that if the Goody attack you and take the cattle and you cannot pay them for yourself, I will not pay you any silver when I come into town Now. I suspect that there is other tablets that would probably read something similar to that effect, and it's quite possible that they're there, but they haven't been recovered or even read yet. But more importantly, I suspect that this kind of mentality would have been present throughout the Acadian and Sumerian regions, where the lords would have not had any concern whatsoever of what would happen to the laborers if they were attacked by the Goody or any other kind of herdsmen in the mountains.
Speaker 1:But in the grand scheme of things, the people of Acad and Sumer had every reason to fear how the Goody and people, because they were eventually able to overthrow the Acadian kings and rule the land for themselves, and in fact this is known as the Goody and Dynasty from 2141 BCE to 2050 BCE, so roughly 100 years, and their rule was known as the Mini Dark Age, as historians have noted that there was much less written records during this time period and the text writing itself diminished and regressed, meaning it became less complex. In addition, famine increased, since they really didn't understand farming techniques and probably could not administer water and infrastructure properly. But also, in fairness to them, there was a climate shift and there was a general drought in the region. So it could be a combination of the fact that it was just poor timing as far as climate is concerned and also they just did not have a means or ability to cultivate fields because don't forget, these are not farmers, these are shepherds To big difference in skill sets that they probably just did not have at the time. Also, trade was also reduced drastically during this time period as well. This became known as the Curse of Akkad.
Speaker 1:Eventually, the Goody and Rourers were overthrown by Utu Hanggal and he took over and ruled the Sumerians and the Acadians till he died when he was inspecting a dam. That's right, he died inspecting a dam. So if that does not sound suspicious, well I don't really know what suspicion is, because to me it sounds like the modern version of. He accidentally fell through the window in the top floor. It appears to me that it was probably foul play, but I guess there's probably no way to know for sure, but anyway, uru Namu took over and reigned from 2112 BCE to 2094 BC, so he was a successor to Utu Hanggal, who overthrew the Goodyans.
Speaker 1:Uru Namu's biggest contribution to banking and trade was that he implemented standardized bronze weights that merchants use in the market and, more importantly, he created the code of Uru Namu. This is the oldest known law code that has survived to this day. The law code itself helped establish a legal code for trade. And also what he did is he set the monthly temple expense at 90 Gur of Barley, 30 sheep and 30 silla of butter. The code also laid the groundwork for the standardized currency, as it standardized the one Mina weight and also standardized the stone weight of a Shekel of silver in relation to one Mina. To give you an understanding of what this means is, a Mina is a unit of weight and it is roughly equivalent to a pound, which was divided into 60 Shekels. And the Mina, like the Shekel, was also a unit of currency. And, of course, it was divided into 60 Shekels because remember we said about the mathematics 60 was their base unit, not 10.
Speaker 1:In addition, the code of Uru Namu also included other laws, and they may sound familiar to you. So if a man commits a murder, that man must be killed. If a man commits a robbery, he will be killed. If a man commits a kidnapping, he is to be imprisoned and pay 15 Shekels of silver. If a man divorces his first time wife, he shall pay her one Mina of silver. If a man appeared as a witness and he was shown to be a perjurer, he must pay 15 Shekels of silver. If a man knacks out the tooth of another man, he shall pay 2 Shekels of silver. And my personal favorite, because it's odd and very specific, if a man severed the nose of another man with a copper knife, he must pay 2 thirds of a Mina of silver. This is a bizarre law because, you know, I chuckle, because I wonder was this a common occurrence where people you know using copper knives to cut off other people's nose? I mean, it's oddly specific. So maybe it was an issue, I don't know.
Speaker 1:In the grand scheme of things, if you reviewed this law code, like I said, a lot of it sounds familiar, right? So you want to understand where the Bible comes from. Well, it comes directly from this time frame and this era. So you know it. Just the Bible, really, when you look at, it is basically taking stories and law code from previous generations and obviously different societies. But taking a step back to look at the Sumerians and then the Akkadians, it's quite obvious to me that those people and the Egyptians for that matter really set the standards and the building blocks for modern societies to build upon. Ultimately, the Sumerians and the Akkadians increased productivity, which led to the creation of the state as a way of organizing the society, but it also created the first legal codes and banking as a means to safely store commodities and also to lend excess commodities and other goods to people in need to smooth out consumption and obviously to increase trade, increase productivity, increase investments. And all these developments and building blocks will be used in the next empire of the Mesopotamians when the small town of Babylon grows into a regional superpower.
Speaker 1:Really, looking at the Sumerians and the Akkadian Empire, it's a really fascinating journey. I mean honestly, for most of the events that we discussed they weren't really part of my early education curriculum. I remember reading about their Fertile Crescent. I don't really recall, but it is possible that my school books included the invention of the wheel in Mesopotamia. Either way, my formal education was awful.
Speaker 1:With regards to Sumer and Akkad. I could be misremembering, but from what I remember, it was the Greeks, and even the Egyptians to a lesser extent, that paid the way for modern cultures to thrive. I don't remember reading that it was in fact the Sumerians. However, I mean, archaeology has just confirmed so much more in southern Mesopotamia and it was discovered that modern elements of business venture were present and began to thrive by the 3rd millennium BCE. We're talking at least 1500 to 3000 years before classical Greece, which we would date around, say, 750 BCE. These elements that were set in place in Sumer and Akkad were conducive to long-term growth of trade and banking and even the development of money, and, as a result, commerce expanded and fortunes were made, which spurred population growth, along with vast new technologies that were developed and, more importantly, the quality of life rose tremendously. What has surprised many early scholars and researchers was how much more successful, fluid and also stable these arrangements were.
Speaker 1:As far back as 5000 years ago, and even before the people of Sumer settled southern Mesopotamia, there was definitely a different culture of social pressures that would have had human beings interacting differently with each other. So really before humans settled into cities and towns, there would have been a lot of social pressures that would have dictated that when you have a surplus of goods you give it away, and when you give it away you give it away through certain feasts or other kind of banquets or whatever right. So if you wanted to show wealth back before the Obede period in Sumer, the best way to show wealth would be how much I can give away. As these cities began to thrive, social pressures began to change and what one of the initial things was the way you now perceived wealth was how much land you had owned or how much of a product you could produce or how much silver you were able to store in a temple. You could see how society really almost did almost a 180 from who could give away the most to who can hoard the most.
Speaker 1:This kind of mentality will really I don't know if plague is the right word, but it will definitely consume human beings really going forward. So this is kind of one of those things I don't know if you want to call it a downside of the Sumerian culture, because I suspect that this kind of mentality would have thrived and would have developed in every culture pretty much, because the one thing we know about human beings is they love to fight, and the idea of settlements, living peacefully and sharing their goods within the community or the community next to them is probably not a realistic way to think human beings would have evolved once we're able to increase productivity and increase the production of excess goods, which ultimately led to the increase in trade, whether it be the local trade or international trade. But in the end, it was the Sumerians that started all this. Now it's quite possible that we get to where we are without the Sumerians, but the fact is that the third ones that started it and really put us on the fast track to a more modern and Western civilization. I always hear that it was the Greeks that were the beginnings of the Western civilization, but in all honesty I would argue that no, it was the Sumerians that started this, it was the ancient Mesotamians, and therefore I really think that the people of Sumer deserve much more credit, historically speaking, than what they currently get.
Speaker 1:I would like to thank you for taking your valuable time to listen to the first couple episodes of the history of money, banking and trade. I really hope you found this to be very enjoyable, informative and entertaining. If you'd like to support the show even further, you can visit patreoncom. History of Money Banking Trade. You can also help a ton by leaving a five-star review and following us on social media. Up next we will discuss the old Dabori Empire.
