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 5. Unearthing Assyria: The Evolution of Trade, Silver, and Financial Structures in an Ancient Economic Powerhouse
Have you ever wondered how the Assyrian Empire, famed for its brutality, was also one of the world's first economic powerhouses? Prepare to be taken on a riveting journey back in time to the evolution of trade and money in the ancient world. From the Greek mercenary army's shock at finding abandoned cities to the groundbreaking shift from cuneiform to parchment writing, we unravel a fascinating aspect of Assyrian progressiveness, contradicting their notorious reputation.
In this episode, we shine a light on the role of silver in ancient trade. Discover how this precious metal transformed from a basic price measurement tool to a formal medium of exchange. We delve into the bustling trade activities of Ashur, the Assyrian city where much of Mesopotamian silver flowed, revealing the intriguing dynamics of ancient commerce. From legal documents for merchants to the temples' role as storehouses, get ready to immerse yourself in the captivating world of antiquity.
Finally, we unpack the intricate workings of the tamkārum, the Assyrian trading system that shielded merchants while promoting trade agreements. We reveal the ancient datum account system of the Karam, a commercial office established about 4,000 years ago, and compare it intriguingly to modern private funds. Unearth secrets of exorbitant interest rates, potential insider trading, and the enormous profits amassed from long-distance trade. So, buckle up for a breathtaking trip into the heart of an ancient economic giant.
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Welcome Podcast Usman. I am Mike D and this is the History of Money, banking and Trade Podcast. My goal is to expand your knowledge of the history and evolution of trade, along with money, banking and credit, from ancient civilizations all the way to the present. So stick around as we get into the ancient Assyrian Empire. If you ever watch Seinfeld, you might recall that whenever they showed Elaine's office, they would have this quick shot of a particular office building and the shot itself was really quick maybe a second or two and you most likely never even really took note of it. I noticed it because I actually worked in that building. I was there for five or six years and I bring this up because one floor above me was one of the most respected PR firms in the country. So if you were going to write a book or had a new TV show or movie or whatever it may be, you might want to go see them so they can craft your upcoming PR campaign. In fact, we used to run into celebrities all the time in the elevator. Can't tell you how many times we run into somebody that's behind you. Oh yeah, that's so and so. True story. One time I even got kicked out of the elevator by Seeker Service. So it was kind of interesting to see all these unique people that you see on television or you're here on the radio or whatever. So I just can't help but think, looking back at that building and that office space above me, how the Assyrians really could have used this firm. I'd say they have some of the worst public relations of all time. It might be justified in certain instances, but I think through time I think people kind of lose sight of all the positives and the amount of things that they did, that people probably just didn't realize it and I just think it's unfortunate because they were a lot more than just a dominant military and hopefully you will see that Assyria was probably the first true economic powerhouse the world had ever seen.
Speaker 1:Paul Cooper's fall of civilization's podcast introduction to the Assyrians discusses the Greek mercenary army that was sent to Persia to fight for a Persian king in 401 BCE. The Greeks fought well in one, but the king that they were fighting for died in battle. The Greeks were essentially stranded and they knew that they had to get out of town quickly as possible. They took off on foot, moving as fast as they could, following the river Tigris to the north towards the Black Sea. Xenophon, who was with the group, wrote how they were stunned to find huge abandoned cities along the way. The first city was bigger than any city Xenophon had ever seen in Greece. The walls were enormous and there was also massive pyramid in the middle. Xenophon didn't have much time to explore because they were basically being chased for their lives. A few days later they came across an even bigger abandoned city. Xenophon was stunned and what he did is he would ask locals along the way after they ran into these cities hey, who built these cities? Like? We've never seen anything like this before. They were massive, the walls are thick, but the interesting thing was the people that they ran into. They didn't even know the names of the cities and they didn't know who built them. They thought that maybe it was the Meads, but they weren't really sure. But it turned out that these were actually the ruins of Nimrod and Nineveh and they had abandoned abandoned for just a few hundred years prior. So within a couple hundred years, the most notorious military in the world was essentially completely forgotten.
Speaker 1:Around 2600 BCE, a small sediment of ashore was formed in the northern quadrant of Mesopotamia, on the banks of the Tigris River. The town itself shared its name with the DD that they worship, the god Ashore, who appeared as a wind, disc or sun. The town of Ashore started as a relatively small trading town and, since it was in the northern region of Mesopotamia, it meant that it was actually closer to Anatolia. The people of Assyria spoke the Assyrian language, which was an Isemitic dialect that evolved from the Akkadian language after 1950 BCE. So this was. It evolved after the original settlement that had been found. However, the Assyrians essentially ended up with two languages throughout their history the ancient Assyrian, which I said was the derivative of Akkadian, and then the modern Assyrian, which was a neocerelic language and, like the Sumerians and the Akkadians prior and the Babylonians for that matter they, the Assyrians, continued to write in cuneiform on clay tablets, and they did this up through 750 BCE.
Speaker 1:In addition, writing also expanded as a relatively ordinary people became literate. So, as you might recall from the Sumer and Akkad episodes, writing was dedicated originally to the upper classes, because they were the only ones that can actually afford to send their kids to school to learn how to be ascribed and, if you might recall, these scribed schools took many years to develop and learn how to become ascribed as much as up to 12 years, I've read. I don't know if that is correct, if that's a little bit of an exaggeration, but either way, the only people that would be able to afford to become scribes were people that the family had the means to send them to scribe school. Also, it wasn't just men that were able to read and write. Women also learned in ancient Assyria.
Speaker 1:So you can see a lot of times with Assyria like it's. It's so interesting because they are known for the brutality but they're very progressive and so many aspects. So it's once you start to learn the culture and the history, you really kind of get an appreciation for how Assyria developed and really how the society evolved, from early trading days up through the time it became a military powerhouse. It was also around then that writing was converted to use on parchment, paper or leather or papyrus. This is much later, this is around 750 BCE, and this conversion was brought on by the Aramaic, who would eventually see their language, the Aramaic language, to plant the ancient Assyrians because of the technological breakthrough in writing. Also, both the Arabic and Hebrew alphabets are also based on Aramaic script.
Speaker 1:So Aramaic was essentially made the second official language in Assyria by 752 BCE, so we're talking nearly 2000 years after the founding of the city itself, or the town, I should say. This meant that the Assyrians were a bilingual society. As such, records were kept in both the Assyrian and Aramaic languages, though the records in the Aramaic generally did not survive, so it's the older languages or the older letters that actually survived. Also, it's worth noting that the Aramaic alphabet became a base for the creation and adaptation of specific writing systems in some of the other Assyrian languages, such as the Hebrew alphabet and the Arabic alphabet. In addition, the Aramaic languages are now considered endangered. They're not completely gone, so it's not like the Samarian language that just completely died out. The, unfortunately, the Aramaic languages are pretty close to dying out.
Speaker 1:But getting back to the geography of the region, as sure was located on the banks of the Tigris River where it bent. The bend in the river meant that the early Assyrians were able to use the bend as a natural defense. From there, they built imposing walls around the city to defend from the early raiders, especially the nomadic herdsmen from the mountains, which was not unlike the Samarians and Nakedians prior. But more importantly, since Assyria was located on the banks of the river between Anatolia and southern Mesopotamia. It acted as a major trading port. Therefore, timber, metals and stone from the north could flow through the city to the south, while commodities such as barley and textiles from the south can flow through the city to come north. While Assyria was an important trading city, it was also a place where they could raise large flocks of sheep and the plane surrounding the town. The wool generated would end up being an early resource for the city itself. So you factor in its location for the trade and its ability to grow crops and raise flocks of domesticated animals, then these factors really helped Assyria grow into a very wealthy city. The early leaders were often chosen by a lot, by the leading citizens of Assyria. We will end up seeing something very similar when we get to the Italian city states, where people would basically rotate and become the leadership of the city itself for a certain period of time. So in reality, the early founding of Assyria would not have been ruled by a strong armed military warlord. It would have been governed by citizens that were typically the businessmen of the early Assyrian town itself Early on in its history, after the conquests in lands by Sargon, the Great had fallen Ashore, had regained some of its independence, but was more or less in the frontier territory of the Akkadian Empire.
Speaker 1:It was believed that around this time that in southern Mesopotamia they had experienced basically climate changes and disruptions and therefore experienced drought and famine. But it appears that Ashore may not have experienced the same climate effects and therefore southern Mesopotamia around Sumer was essentially weakened. Ashore's independence really didn't last that long, as the clay tablets that have been recovered in the region seem to indicate that around 2100 BCE the kingdoms of Ur, which would have been Sumer to the south, would have rose up again and would have conquered Ashore and its territories and therefore would have incorporated it back into the Ur dynasty, which would have been called the third dynasty of Ur, or it's also known as the Neo-Symharian Empire. One of the first known kings or maybe a king is a wrong word to use, maybe you can describe him as an early leader of Ashore was Puzar Ashore the first. The name itself means the servant of Ashore. Ashore really hadn't had any kind of independent kings up to this point, so Puzar Ashore the first styled himself more as a governor rather than a king, but, as I mentioned in the previous episodes, the area of Ashore had been ruled by outside states like the Sumerians and the Akkadians and then eventually the Babylonians. Now I really like bringing him up because I feel it's important to know that the founding of Ashore was not based on some forceful military dictator, but almost just the opposite, as the early leaders were sort of a part of a larger, broader collective, not a strong military dictator that people kind of associate Assyria with. So initially it was almost like a board of directors, not a dictator, if that makes sense. By around 1900 BCE the old Assyrian Empire had formed, when their own local king was able to independently control and rule a relatively minor kingdom, especially if you compare it to the Akkadian or Babylonian Empire. So this was a much smaller plot of land than what we had seen, say, when Sargon was conquering the known world at the time. And by this time period Ashur had began to establish itself as a great business center, as merchant companies were branching out into Anatolia to trade textiles and tin from Ashur.
Speaker 1:For silver, as I stated in the previous episodes, by around 2500 BCE in Babylonia and several centuries later in Assyria, silver began to resemble an all-purpose money in certain aspects. But the idea of silver being a commodity uses a medium of exchange and how rapidly this had been adopted is debated to this day. So no one really knows when silver went from being a measurement tool to measure how much something is worth to actually becoming a formal medium of exchange. No one's really quite sure. It's probably more of a gradual thing, a little bit here, a little bit there, but it wasn't like a universally accepted exchange at this point. But some Assyriologists do claim that silver, as far back as the third millennium BCE, was the principal definition of economic value and that it was regularly exchanged for other commodities, and not only in long-distance trade or high-value trade but in local trade. That would probably not be the most commonly accepted hypothesis of silver at the time, because in other areas, especially in sumer and akkad, silver was more just used to value other goods. It wasn't necessarily being exchanged for other commodities. So you would still have a system where a particular commodity might be worth a certain amount of silver and another commodity is worth a certain amount of silver, and then they can kind of figure how much to exchange the two commodities, but silver wouldn't actually be exchanged. You're trading the commodities but not silver. But silver was used to set the market so people could figure out exactly how much one commodity could trade for another.
Speaker 1:By then Ashur was really kind of establishing himself as a really important trading city, and it was almost considered an international city by then as well. So if a business person was visiting the city from another city, it was common for that person to give tribute to the patron god, ashur. So when a business person come into town, one of the first things they would do was they'd actually go visit the temple and then they would give a tribute to that patron god. But this would have been done in most cities. So you show respect to the city. When you come visit and you're doing business, and by showing respect one of the first things you do is actually visit their patron god. And also, too, with trade in itself.
Speaker 1:I kind of mentioned it briefly in the fact that trade was essentially controlled by the city assembly, who made decisions on trade itself. So it was almost like a board of directors, if you want to look at that way. In other words, the political leaders of Ashur made the decisions on the issues of how and where trade would be conducted. Also, they decided which of the individual merchants would be permitted to be involved in the trade of the city. So the merchants would be given legal documents which would have acted as permits indicating that they were legally allowed to trade within the city itself. In addition, the temples would also be involved in trade Since they were the centers of storage for a lot of goods, which I'd mentioned in the previous episodes. That meant that whether the temple wanted to be involved or not, they were going to be involved in trade because a lot of goods would have ultimately flowed through them. So a trader would buy and sell goods but store the goods at the temple. So no matter what was going to happen, the temple was going to have a portion of the trade, whether it was directly or indirectly, they were going to be involved. So trade was obviously big in Ashur but, more importantly to the north, in Anatolia, trade was flowing between Ashur and the city states. In Ashur the city states at the time would have been controlled by the Hattai city states and later the Hittites.
Speaker 1:Trade was flowing between Anatolia and Mesopotamia because, as you might recall from the previous episodes, mesopotamia did not have a lot of resources, so they relied upon Anatolia to bring in a lot of goods that they could not produce or did not have in Mesopotamia. So they could not have produced copper because there wouldn't have been any tin or copper, because copper couldn't have been mined locally, had to be mined from somewhere else and a lot of it would have come in from Anatolia. And since this was still the Bronze Age, copper and tin were of very high demand and luckily for the people of Mesopotamia, anatolia had an abundance of copper of which they were able to produce and ship to the south and it was ultimately able to be shipped through the merchants of Ashur. But it wasn't necessarily a one-way street because up in Anatolia they really prized the textiles from the Mesopotamian region Also to. The merchants of Ashur were able to import tin from as far away as Afghanistan and they were able to bring that into Anatolia. So ultimately goods were flowing in and out of Anatolia through the merchants of Ashur and in fact you could kind of say that the merchants of Ashur basically possessed a monopoly of all the tin that was sold in Anatolia.
Speaker 1:The textiles themselves were often manufactured by Assyrian women at home and this would have been similar to how the Samarians basically developed textiles, except the insumer, the textiles were made in the temple, but they were made by women itself and the price of clothing were ultimately determined by market forces of supply and demand and also along with quality, so it wasn't like prices were going to be always this much. Prices really would have fluctuated depending upon the interaction of the supply and demand curve and just kind of really circling back to the whole silver discussion, you might recall that I said that in Mesopotamia they did not have many resources and therefore they did not have any natural reserves of silver or basically any other metal for that matter. But either way, metals had to be imported, and all those metals, silver in particular, had to be imported from other places. Since Anatolia was relatively close by and had some silver reserves, much of the silver that would have flowed in through Mesopotamia would have ultimately flowed through Anatolia. Furthermore, since Asher was in the northern Mesopotamian region, much of the silver would have flowed through there before moving to the south, into Akkad and Sumer, and therefore Asher was positioned to be an important middleman in the silver trade. And also, as I mentioned in my previous episodes, much of the trade would have occurred overland, by donkey caravans. So when Assyrian donkey caravans arrived in Anatolia, the traders couldn't just walk into the city to conduct business, they actually had to get permission from the native rulers for the trade. These native rulers were probably closer to warlords, not kings, but either way they were in effect in command of the local region, so you had to go through them in order to be able to conduct business in Anatolia.
Speaker 1:It's also worth noting that by time Assyria developed trade relations with Anatolia in the 20th century BCE, the private merchant class had come to play a much larger role in Assyrian society as compared to the merchants in southern Mesopotamia, places like Sumer and Babylon, where the palace and temple had a much greater influence on trade. However, don't get me wrong Assyrian trade was still influenced by the temple or the palace to an extent, but it isn't 100% clear how much they played a role. But the temple and the palace still weren't calling the majority of the shots, but they still had an active role. But it's not like it wasn't Sumer and Akkad where initially, the palace and the temple were really in charge of all the trade. That would have happened because that was more of a distribution society where goods would have been collected at the temple and then it would have been distributed out to the people. By the time we get to Assyria, the economy had changed into more of a private merchant class society and because of it, I would say, risk played a larger role in the Assyrian trade. The fact was, the early Assyrian trade often included chipmints that would have been sent out from Asshor towards Anatolia without the merchant originating Asshor being guaranteed of a certain price of the goods in advance. So it was possible that the merchant family in Asshor expected profits but could have been hit with losses, or maybe the margins were greatly decreased, or maybe even just the opposite. Maybe they were able to get more. Probably not, but that's also a possibility as well.
Speaker 1:By 1960 BCE, around the same time, ashore was gaining its independence from the Samarians, while the Assyrian merchants established the Karam, which were small colonial settlements just outside of Anatolian cities where they were able to secure areas for the merchants from Ashore to bring their goods to Anatolia. The word for Karam means port in Akkadian. Also, the merchants of Ashore were called the Timkaram. It is believed that the old Assyrian traders were a variant of the Akkadian Tamkarams, who were salaried, semi-public, quasi-private individuals acting on behalf of the state organization, who were essentially tasked with engaging in commercial exchanges and, on certain occasions, financing the trade itself. The Timkaram, who were technically independent, needed to operate within the palace hierarchy and basically engaged in risk-free trade due to the fact that they had close ties to the palace, which it's not all like the market-oriented merchants who would make profits or incur losses in a typical marketplace of buying and selling. So, basically, what I'm saying is that the previous iteration of this trade would have involved really working on behalf of the temple, and because of it, there was less risk of loss, because the temple would have established certain prices in advance. By the time we get to the Assyrians, we're moving away from that, and now we're getting into more of the actual private market economy, where now, when you engage in certain trade, you could be making a lot of money or you can basically be losing everything, so there definitely was a lot more risk that were involved.
Speaker 1:By time, the Assyrians had set up these port cities in Anatolia to do trade and, like I said, the trade would have been flowing from Anatolia back to Mesopotamia and vice versa. In reality, though, what we see is there was really a shift in what the early Assyriologists believed these tampkiram were versus what the new accepted hypothesis is now, because the early Assyriologists especially Polanyi, who I mentioned previously, he believed that trade that was conducted by the tampkirams was more for the palace or the temple and it was not along market lines, as the market, the supply and demand would not have determined the prices. But there has been kind of pushback to that hypothesis lately. So now the Assyriologists are starting to believe that market forces are actually more involved in the trade itself and the temple and the palace would have had less say in the trade itself. And, in all honesty, the biggest reason why we're seeing a shift in this is just because the sheer number of tablets that have been recovered in these karams, because there's been tens of thousands of tablets and the Assyriologists haven't got through all of them. They've gotten through just a fraction of them. So essentially what's happening is, as they're going through these tablets, what they're noticing is maybe there is a shift in who was actually in charge of the merchant activity and what they've gone from is hey, yeah, initially it was the temple and the palace that were controlling it, because that's how it was more or less done in Sumer and Akkad, but things had been changed since we got along to the Assyrian time frame. So what?
Speaker 1:The latest belief is that the merchants that were doing trade in these port cities in Anatolia were essentially conducting on their own account and for personal gain, not so much for the temple or the palace. In addition, the Assyrian tempkaram acted within changes of supply and demand. So, in the grand scheme of things, the original thought was trade was essentially risk-free, but that idea has basically shifted to the fact that no, it wasn't risk-free. The tablets often referenced losses that were sustained, and sometimes pretty big losses, not to mention the fact that letters had been recovered from the wives of Assyrian merchants at Kinesh, the biggest trading port, which complains that their spouses were only interested in money. So you can see that this was kind of a modern feel to it. You don't think of societies 4,000 years ago complaining about greed.
Speaker 1:And to give you an idea about the tempkaram itself, the tempkaram could be a trader who travels with merchandise, or it could be a person working on behalf of a trader to facilitate trade. It's like a banker or like a merchant or a moneylender who gives out commercial loans. It's a kind of way to kind of look at it. And I bring up loans because this trade evolved into a modern version of promissory notes. The notes did not mention the creditor by name, but refer to him as tempkaram, the merchant or creditor. Archaeologists have also discovered some tablets that had the phrase the bearer of this tabrilat is a tempkaram, which that means that these notes were transferable. In other words, there would have been a secondary market on debt that would have been transferred during this time period. This secondary market really shouldn't be surprised, because we noted that a secondary debt market had been established in the previous episode when we're discussing UR. In addition, it is also believed that there may have been a precursor of barrel checks, but this wasn't necessarily new either, as we had seen something similar in Babylon already, and I think it's worth discussing that.
Speaker 1:They had operations established as well. Their trading operations were subdivided into three processes, which would have included the initial relationship between a temple or palace and its merchants and their activities after leaving their home base, and then, finally, this settling of accounts between merchants and central agencies at the end of the process. In the middle stages, merchants were essentially guided by the invisible hand, as they could basically trade freely to establish a supply and demand where prices and profits could fluctuate due to the interaction of the supply and demand curve. But it's important to note that the first and third parts required approvals from the local king or warlord. So it's possible that certain fixed values, such as tax, could have been applied with merchants before or after receiving silver and other process materials from the local or central agency.
Speaker 1:And, like I said, it's not like you can wake up one day and decide, hey, I want to be a merchant today. No, you had to get pre-approval from the board in Asher and then also the local board or local or warlord and the carom that was set up in places like Anatolia. And let's not forget that this trade wasn't exactly completed in a week, so it would often take six months to a year to complete the round trip, to get back to ashore or anywhere in Assyria with finished goods or raw materials or commodities such as silver. So essentially, trade wasn't necessarily risk-free because there would have been the interaction of the supply and demand curve. So it's possible that you could have lost any kind of monies and any kind of transaction or journey that you took.
Speaker 1:But they helped try to mitigate some kind of risk because the caroms protected the rights of the Asher traders against the local Anatolians. They also mediated disagreements among the traders themselves. Also, the boundaries between public and private were very gray, as it would have been difficult at times to see where one is acting on behalf of themselves or acting on behalf of the palace or temple, and the tempkerem was not rigidly defined position either. So ultimately, the Assyrian merchants in Anatolia were therefore given protection by the local king or warlord, and they were also protected by the Assyrian soldiers from ashore. This essentially was a win-win situation, because the Assyrian merchants were able to buy and sell goods, while the local king or warlord was able to be paid in taxes for the Assyrian trading rights. The number of trade colonies in or a carom was probably around 21 or so at this time. Also, this time was the first time of a documented king in ashore, because before, like I said, it was more of a local board of trustees that were in charge of ashore. Now, for the first time, we're starting to see an actual king make decisions for the people of Assyria.
Speaker 1:The caroms often acted as early notaries as they can certify every trade procedure, and caroms were ultimately responsible for the arrangements of all relations between the Assyrian traders and their native rulers or warlords In Anatolia. All caroms were dependent on the Canis carom. The Canis carom was the organizational center of the network of commercial trade, the Canis basically what is known as the chief colony was charged with the regulation of trade activities. In reality, this central command brought some measure of standardization, and a prime example would be the level of interest that could be charged. So at the time, it had a fixed rate of interest of 30% per year that was to be applied in commercial activities amongst the traders themselves. If you go back to my previous episode, you might remember that this 30% is a figure that goes back to the days of Akkad, and this rate was frequently used in silver and copper loans. However, the creditors who gave loans to Anatolian natives were free to charge any interest rate. It could be lower or it could be much higher than 30%. So the standardized rate only applied to Assyrians, and also, too, the 30% was often a low interest rate for non-Assyrians, as a lot of times they would basically engage in loan sharking activities, and they were free to do this because they were the Assyrians and the locals were not afforded certain protections that the Assyrians were afforded.
Speaker 1:Also, taxes vary dependent upon the item that was being traded, but they were taxed on nearly all aspects of the delivery of goods once it passed into Anatolia From entrance taxes to road taxes, a head tax meaning the tax based on the number of people in the caravan, and since these taxes were levied, it wasn't uncommon for traders to try and smuggle items to void the taxes themselves. As such, measures were put in place to try at least to limit some of the smuggling, and these measures included imprisonment if you got caught, and they also put investigators near the roads or the ports to monitor for smuggling. We know some of the taxes of the old Assyrian merchants that were supposed to pay. These included the transport and import taxes upon arrival in the carams, there was tolls and duties on goods and the persons and routes, and the export tax upon departure from the. From ashore, smugglers used what was called the narrow track, which was going through the mountainous paths of Anatolia. So merchants can get around some of the taxes by taking a detour away from the authorized routes and checkpoints, lacking the protection offered by the official routes.
Speaker 1:Their journey was a lot more perilous and they would have been exposed to wild animals, highway thieves and even a harsh climate that they had to deal with. So smuggling meant that fooling the customs system, either by not declaring taxable goods or by making partial declarations, and one of the popular tricks was the simple idea of hiding goods in your underwear. The merchants had actually wrote letters amongst each other and they've been recovered. That describes the various ways to avoid it, whether that meant paying off the guards or hiring local mules to basically transport the goods to the town. In a way, this reminds me a lot of the modern drug smuggling that we see coming in from Mexico and the United States.
Speaker 1:You hire a local person on one side of the border who has connections on the other side of the border, and they're able to evade certain officials and they know the local regions inside Now. So it's very similar to what they would have been doing back in the early days of the Old Assyrian Empire. Also, there was a legal process that I kind of got to go through that was set up between the local rulers of Anatolia and the Assyrian traders. So, for example, if there was a dispute among a local ruler in Anatolia and an Assyrian trader, an envoy of local rulers would have come to solve the problem in the presence of an Assyrian and ultimately a trial would have been established where there would have been defendants, plaintiffs and witnesses and they would have gone through the legal process and ultimately adjudicated on one side or the other Part of this court proceeding could have involved the fact that there was a rule set in place that the Assyrian traders were only permitted to come to the city states as long as they stayed in their designated carrom.
Speaker 1:The families that established these trading ports would often leave behind a trusted family member in the carrom to ensure that they supervise local trade while also sending back goods to ashore. The trade was clearly organized via a great number of family-based groups called houses makes sense. These carrom became so successful that generations of families would thrive in creating the ancient form of a millionaire class. These traders would eventually form mercantile guilds that acted as trade associations representing the merchants for the local authorities. This ultimately helped mitigate the risk involved in long-distance trade by basically creating some permanent representation or partnerships and factories in the local area. This was all accomplished by the process in which the merchandise was passed on and sold by the main agent himself or his staff in the city who, like I said, were often trusted family.
Speaker 1:As the business grew, others would be brought into the business by giving them merchandise to be entrusted as essentially traveling salesmen, who often acted as commission agents and took goods on consignment by signing certain bonds. If the official of the business didn't have enough silver or other commodities to pay the merchant for the goods, they could obtain the goods on credit, which was recorded on a special account which the traders all had. If he did not possess such an account, it could be booked on the one of his associates' accounts. When a loan was given to the traders on behalf of a trading post-ruler, they would have acted as the guarantor on the loans and they would have also stored the goods if necessary. In a way, the Canis Carum served as the main accounting and back office as well. The accounts of the individual traders and their associated business were tracked and maintained in a ledger of all such debts and claims against a third party or their shares. These records were expressed in the relation with the county or the local palace and these records were stored there as well.
Speaker 1:The biggest trade for the Assyrians at the time was the copper trade, so cities that possessed a Carum office. The copper was usually paid to the office by the palace and then the traders would receive shares. Commercial desmoots often arose in these Carums and, like I said prior, they could be adjudicated in the local region or they could actually be taken back to Asher and they could have been adjudicated there. The Karam office was ultimately funded by taxes the Assyrian traders paid to the Karam colony. This office stored traders goods and gave the traders loans and acted as gantor of the trades.
Speaker 1:Since the Karam office essentially acted as an accounting and back office, it was responsible for adjusting and reconciling the accuracy of the scales and measurements that would have been used to conduct the trades themselves. Because, don't forget, we're still in an era where a trade would have involved the traders actually measuring out the goods that would have been traded. So if you were to buy copper, you got to measure out the copper and then if it was being purchased with silver, you got to measure out the silver. So you would have needed somebody that was trusted and able that could make sure that the scales and the measurements that were being used were accurate at all times. And it should be noted that the Assyrian merchant living in a colony automatically was a member of the local Karam and they would have been given permission to participate in trade by the Assyrian city councils, as I had mentioned prior. Like I said, you couldn't just wake up and say I want to be a long distance trader. No, you had to get permission from the local Assyrian city councils before you can do that and in many cases, once they were given permission, the Assyrian traders would have typically set up trading companies or at least participated in certain Karam commercial activities. The businesses were often funded through loans or even through equity trading partnerships.
Speaker 1:This should not really surprise you, because we discussed in the previous episode of the trading partnerships that were set up during the dynasty of Ur, which, as you might recall, was the dynasty itself lasted anywhere from, say, 2110 to 2000 BCE, and in order to participate in the Karam commercial activities, registered traders had to have a datum account in the Karam office. The datum accounts are essentially commercial business accounts in the Karam. The merchant's personal contributions would have been considered their shares in the account itself. Because these accounts were established nearly 4,000 years ago, there does seem to be a bit of a disagreement among the Assyriologists as to what exactly they were, as in no one really is 100% sure exactly what it was. Some think that the datum accounts were used for taxation purposes, while others believe that they were basically set up as commercial funds for the contributions for the collective trade. So, in other words, it was basically a private fund that would have been set up that people could have contributed to. If so, that would have been similar to what was set up in the dynasty of Ur, which, like I said, was around 2000 BCE, so it happened a few hundred years before this.
Speaker 1:However, each registered merchant who had a datum account in the Karam were expected to deposit a certain specified commodity, such as copper, silver or even textiles, to fulfill their obligation during a specific period in their various different ways. Some see it as a collective fund raising effort, and this kind of reminds me of when an investor commits a certain amount of money to a private fund. So when you commit to a private fund, you may not have to pay the monies right away, but when called upon, you must contribute the amount that you originally committed to. The money raised in the datum would allow the Karam to take the deposit of goods directly to the local palace in exchange for copper or whatever commodity was being traded Then. The profit was then shared by depositors on a pro-rata basis.
Speaker 1:It's not 100% clear why, for the most part, people didn't do this on an individual basis, why they used a group of other investors, but it's quite possible that this was just a way to spread risk, so you can invest in multiple business accounts and if one account goes bust or loses money, the other accounts should make money. It looks like a typical mutual fund, but nearly 4,000 years ago, and it's quite possible that by pooling your assets together that you could potentially receive economies of scale. So that would have actually increased your profit margins. But either way, when a merchant set up a datum account, they were expected to pledge and then deposit the full amount into the datum itself. So the merchants who did not fulfill their obligation had to make a balance or supplementary payment to the Karam or, if need be, to another person who had shares in the Karam itself. So another person could have stepped in, made the payment for you and you just had to basically pay them back.
Speaker 1:All the accounts were tracked on a tablet ledger in Q&A form because, as I said earlier, the Karam would have acted as a default back office slash accounting office that tracked all the debits and credits that were flowing in and out from the Assyrian traders who participated in commercial activities on behalf of the registered merchants. Now, as for the locals in Anatolia. They were basically shut out of this process as they really didn't get a chance to participate in the trade with the Assyrians, except for an occasional local grain dealer here and there. Therefore, the people of Anatolia basically depended upon the Syrians economically. What I find fascinating was this trade was done despite the fact that both regions had different time schedules and even different standardized weights and measurements, so in reality, there wasn't any built-in efficiencies in the trade. Also, because of this, any interest calculation would have been adversely affected, because the Assyrians based their interest calculations on time. But unfortunately the Anatolians and the Assyrians worked on different time schedules and even different calendars.
Speaker 1:But in the grand scheme of things, the interest rate was very high, as much as 30%, because, as you might recall, the interest rate that was standardized for silver at the time was 30%, which would have been enforced by the Karam, and the Karam essentially protected each Assyrian trader, but it did not offer protection for the local Anatolians, as the Assyrians would routinely lend to Anatolians for an interest rate that would have ranged from 60% to 240%. Like I mentioned earlier that there was essentially some loan sharking operations that would have occurred back in these days in Anatolia because they had no protection. Furthermore, as part of the agreements, the interest rate would have been calculated using compound interest, so a slow payment could have been absolutely devastating to the person. Also, interest isn't how we think of it in modern terms, because back then a lot of payments were made in kind. So interest could mean not silver or copper or whatever commodity, but it could have meant other things, such as timber or grains or sheep even, for example. But even if there wasn't lending operations where the Assyrians can make a lot of money, the profit margins that they would have received from this long-distance trade was quite high. It would have been around 100% for the tin trade and about 200% for quality textiles.
Speaker 1:I would imagine that the ladies that were back in Assyria that were making these fine textiles probably had no idea how much money these merchants were making in Anatolia. They probably were told that they were making very little in margin For some reason. When I think of this, I kind of think of the modern version of insider trading, when you use three people to commit an insider trading fraud and the person that gets the information never interacts with the person that's actually making the trade and then years later they get caught and then the person that was passing on the information to a middle person who passed it on to the trader, would find out years later that the person that was getting the information was getting screwed bad because the person making the trade was making way higher profits than what was led on to believe to the original person. Totally different scenario, obviously I get it, but that's the kind of thought process I had with this the women back in Assyria doing all the hard labor putting this together but basically getting peanuts when the people doing the trade would have made a lot of money. But it's also worth noting that the trade that would have happened long distance wasn't a simple trade where you package the goods, put it on a plane and deliver it, or a boat and deliver it. There was a lot of risks that were involved when you travel this far. So maybe I'm being a little unfair, but because there was a lot of risks that were involved in this long distance trade. So it's quite possible that these high margins were fair considering the risks that were taken.
Speaker 1:One of the camps stood out from all the rest. I believe we mentioned Kinesh a few minutes ago, but I think it's important to get a little more color. This would have been also known as Kotepe Kinesh is the antiquity version of it, but it ultimately became the most important trading post for Ashur. The city of Kinesh was ruled by Hathians, the trade colony of Karam Kinesh and Anatolia was among the most lucrative centers for all trade in all of the Near East region. Karam Kinesh was reached by donkey caravans from Ashur. It was roughly 625 miles or around a thousand kilometers away, which usually took about six weeks to get there from Ashur, and, just like the other caravans, the Assyrians traveled to Kashur, set up the business and then controlled the business directly from Ashur by placing trusted associates, like I said, who were typically family members, in charge of the trading post. Goods and donkeys would be sold in exchange for commodities such as silver, bronze, copper and even gold to a lesser extent. The historian Paul Kruseyak stated for several generations the trading houses of Karam Kinesh flourished and some became very wealthy ancient millionaires. However, not all businesses were kept within the family and some capital that financed the Anatolian trade came from long term investments made by independent speculators in return for a specified proportion of the profits.
Speaker 1:There is not much about today's commodity markets that an old Assyrian would not recognize today. In reality, the Karam Kinesh was really a showcase of modern market awareness. Many letters that were written back and forth seem to indicate that the traders were keenly aware about finding good markets and getting good prices for their goods. By the time the poor of Karam Kinesh is on full swing. Modern instruments, even like cheques, were often being used and, like most modern markets, innovation often is developed to make the markets even more liquid. The traders in the old Assyrian colony of Kinesh were often looking for ways in which they could maximize their profits and use modern instruments such as checks payable to a bearer. Also, like we saw in the traders in Babylon and Ur, investment companies were set up that paid dividends in a pro-rata basis on the original investment amounts by the individual investors, as I just mentioned previously. In addition, these markets were so thoroughly developed by time Kinesh was set up that the traders and the people were well aware of the prices in different regions. In a way, I can see these traders of, say, 4,000 years ago getting their clay tablets and jotting down the most recent prices and then sending this prized information to members of their company, and they could have used it to set up almost like a modern arbitrage trade, where they buy goods that were cheaper in one location to sell in another. And if this is true, then that arbitrage would have eventually disappeared and there would have been a standardized rate within the region itself In trade gas so popular that by around 1800 BCE, a serialogist believed that as many as 2,000 people in the city of Asher were involved in long-distance trade. Also, it is believed that about one third of Assyrians may have routinely traveled to Anatolia to partake in trade, which, as I previously mentioned, was about a six-week trip by Donky Caravan.
Speaker 1:Also in Asher and Kinesh, slavery was a form of labor that was continued from the early days of Sumer. The possession of several slaves was considered a sign of wealth, like the possession of a nice house would be today. Assyriologists have been able to recover tablets that were sale contracts with last wills and testaments and the division of inheritance that included the slaves. Male slaves were called Wardham and the female slaves Anthem, which could have been actually translated into second wife. The male slaves cost on average of 30 shackles of silver and the female slaves would have cost on average 20 shackles of silver.
Speaker 1:Anatolian slaves were usually less expensive than others. Wealthy merchants could afford and support an entire domestic staff of slaves that would have been handling their day-to-day operations in the house and outside, and it also wasn't unusual for women to possess their own slaves as well. So it wasn't just men who were slavers. Women could have been slavers as well. Men could receive female slaves from which they had sexual relations, which would not be a surprise to anybody, I don't think, and some slaves would have belonged to institutions such as the Ashore City Hall or the Ashore Palace would have had their own slaves. Female slavery typically involved cleaning duties, preparing meals and helping to raise the children. In a way, it kind of reminds me a lot of the American chattel slavery in the South. Also, it wasn't that unusual for female slaves to be used as child-bearing instruments for women that could not have children. In addition, slaves were almost treated as currency.
Speaker 1:They could be sold in order to pay a debt. An example was found that an Assyrian woman brought back a slave that had been sold by her daughter-in-law in order to pay for the export tax her husband owed the city of Ashore. A slave could also be seized by a creditor or by local authorities as security for debt, and debt in itself was a reason why certain people would have fallen into slavery. Remember, the interest rates often exceed a 30% a year, so it wouldn't be uncommon for an indebted person to reach a point where they couldn't really afford to service their debt. In many cases, the children would have been pledged as collateral for their father's debts and if they couldn't pay back the loans then they would have been essentially seized by the creditor. So ultimately, the old Assyrian Empire was really built upon their merchant activities. People, when they think of Assyria, often think about the Neo-Assyrian Empire, where certain kings would have committed essentially atrocities towards their enemies. But this is not how Assyria started out. Assyria was almost the complete opposite. The city of Ashore was essentially founded by businessmen and businesswomen, for that matter and Assyria was still more or less run by a local border directors that would have made all the decisions in Ashore and abroad.
Speaker 1:I want to thank you for taking your time to listen to this first episode of the old Assyrian Empire. We will get into more details into the Middle Assyrian Empire next episode, where we look into the first kings of the Middle Assyrian Empire and the demographic shifts that would have occurred to the south of them in Babylonia, and also to the north of them in Anatolia. These changes in Anatolia and Mesopotamia will have an impact on the way Assyria will be run and operated going forward. If you like what you hear and want to donate to the show, you can visit us at patreoncomsh or you can visit our website at moneybankingtradecom. Also, you can help out the show a ton by leaving a 5 star review. Thank you very much. Talk to you soon.
