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 9. The Spectacle of Babylonian Power and the Intrigue of Economic Mastery
Embark on a historical odyssey that will redefine your understanding of ancient Mesopotamian politics and economics. I, Mike D, am your guide through a saga of kings and empires, where the mighty Assyrians and Babylonians clash, and the wisdom of Nebuchadnezzar II echoes through the ages. Together, we'll scrutinize the delicate dance of power from Esarhaddon and Sennacherib, the Assyrian juggernauts, and the internal revolts that rewrote destinies. The tale thickens with familial rivalries as we recount Samar-suma-ukin rebellion against his brother, Ashurbanipal, unraveling a history fraught with alliances and betrayals.
Venture into the vibrant economic life of ancient Babylon, where trade routes were arteries of prosperity and temples doubled as commercial hubs. We'll sift through the economic fabric woven by Nebobalassar and Nebuchadnezzar II, spotlighting their diplomatic prowess that led to cultural assimilation and robust trade networks. Grapple with the enigma of the Hanging Gardens, scrutinize the market regulations by historical figures like Nabonidus, and marvel at the astronomical diaries that recorded market fluctuations with celestial precision. It's a chapter of history where economics and astrology converge, offering a glimpse into the minds of ancient scholars who documented their world with a meticulousness that rivals modern data analysts.
Witness the dramatic fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire as we chart the cunning of Cyrus the Great, whose conquests reshaped the map of the ancient world. Delve into the political and religious unrest that simmered in Babylon during Nabonidus's mysterious retreat to Arabia, and dissect the fateful night of Belshazzar's feast, where the writing on the wall prophesied doom. In an unprecedented move, we'll investigate Cyrus's innovative approach to the defeated Nabonidus, a strategy that would earn him the title of "the Great" and redefine the concept of victory. As we close this chapter, the echoes of ancient Mesopotamia continue to resonate, offering timeless lessons in leadership, economy, and human resilience.
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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 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. In the previous episode, we discussed the Kaldian rise and influence in Babylonia, coupled with the constant power struggle between the native Babylonian kings and the formidable Assyrian Empire. From there, we discussed the various alliances that formed to take on the once mighty Assyrians, but we also continued the discussion on the rise of silver and even discussed the conventional wisdom of the barter system by questioning its ferocity. In addition, we discussed social constructs that were long established in the region of modern day Iraq prior to this period, but in the end, everything up to this point was built on previous generations, whether it was Sargon the Great's military power, or the rise of Hammurabi, or even the rise of far-off trading colonies. But for Babylonia, it was the rise of the Assyrians that meant Babylon would end up being under their rule for centuries. As such, they typically allied with other cultures and states in the region to overthrow their overlords whenever they thought Assyria was in a weakened state. So, for example, the Assyrian ruler Sinakarib was in his mid-30s when he ascended to the Assyrian throne in August of 705 BCE, after his father, assyragon II, had died in battle of which his body was never discovered. This single event stirred up rebellions across the Assyrian Empire. Sinakarib took the ruling titles of king of both Assyria and Babylon. One major difference was his father, sargon, and the previous rulers proclaimed themselves as viceroys of Babylon in reference to Marduk, because Marduk was in fact considered Babylon's formal king. Sinakarib didn't do this. He explicitly asserted himself as Babylon's king. In addition, he did not take the hand of the statue of Marduk and thus did not honor the god by undergoing the traditional Babylonian coronation. So he showed absolutely no reference to the Babylonians as a whole from the very beginning and, like I said numerous times, this was very much not in line with the Assyrian respect they had for the Babylonian culture as such. The Babylonians very much felt disrespected and responded with revolts that happened a month apart from each other, so there were several revolts in a row, and this would have happened in 704 BCE during Sinakarib's rule. Things were straightened out, but then in 700 BCE, things reignited. Then again, things reignited again and Sinakarib finally just said enough is enough and he destroyed Babylon and took Marduk back to Assyria, which this was a major problem for the Assyrians and obviously the Babylonians, because the Assyrians had respected the Babylonian culture and really saw this as a front to the whole Mesopotamian region as a whole. But in the end, the Babylonians more or less just had to take it because the city was destroyed.
Speaker 1:Now, in 681 BCE, his son, sinakarib's son, esarhadon, had taken the throne after Sinakarib was murdered by his two older sons, so Esarhadon was the youngest of the three sons. One of Esarhadon's early acts was he completely rebuilt the city of Babylon. So he rebuilt Babylon, but he was also a very powerful ruler. He wasn't a weak ruler that came in and people can easily manipulate. So he ended up conquering far off lands in Egypt and Nubia and even parts of Libya and Iran and the Eurasian steppe, including the Persians, the Medes, the Schitians and the Arabs, the Phoenicians and even some other Greeks and Lydians were also conquered. Now you can say that this was Assyrian's zenith as an empire. The Babylonians and the Caldeans remained peaceful and quiet during this time period because they weren't going to challenge him, because he was just too powerful.
Speaker 1:Esarhadon appointed his eldest son, sin Nadine Apolli as the crown prince in 674, but he died just two years later, which this again would have threatened a succession crisis. This time, esarhadon appointed two crown princes His eldest living son, shamosh Shum Okin, was selected as the heir to Babylon, while his younger son, ashurbanipal, was selected as the heir to Assyria. As such, the next major revolt in Babylon against the Assyrian Empire was fermented not by Caldean, babylonian or even in Elomite, but Shamosh Shum Okin, who I just mentioned, was appointed by the Assyrian king as the king of Babylon, by his late father and previous king of Assyria, esarhadon, who was also the older brother of Ashurbanipal, the new ruler of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Now, it's quite possible that Esarhadon for saw issues with Shamosh Shum Okin, and that's why he appointed him as the king of Babylonia, not Assyria, but it doesn't matter, because this turned out to be an absolute, fatal mistake and would have cost both Assyrian Babylon years of fighting because of it.
Speaker 1:In 672 BCE, the Babylonians were able to team up with a large alliance of peoples who desired to be free of Assyria. These alliances included the Babylonians, the Persians, the Caldeans, the Medes, the Elamites, aramaans, israelites, arabs and even Canaanites. Ashurbanipal triumphed over his older brother in 648 BCE, and Elam was essentially wiped off the map. Anyone that allied with Shemesh Shoumah king, including the Babylonians and the Caldeans, arabs and others, were severely punished, and Assyrian governor named Kandilanu was then placed on the throne of Babylon to rule on behalf of Ashurbanipal.
Speaker 1:The rest of Ashurbanipal's rule was peaceful and uneventful, but he did die, and then things went haywire again and Assyria got locked into another bitter civil war. During this civil war, basically everybody revolted and seized paying tribute, including Babylonia. Nabopalassar, an obscure Caldean chieftain, who was probably in the historic right place at the right time, used this as a perfect opportunity to take advantage of the chaos in Assyria and seize the city of Babylon in 620 BCE with the help of his native Babylonian inhabitants. But he had to deal with a large and powerful army that marched in the Babylon to rank control of the region. Nabopalassar was most likely saved because yet another massive Assyrian rebellion broke out in Nineveh, which forced the Assyrian king to turn back. In order to quell the revolt, nabopalassar took advantage of the situation and seized the ancient city of Nippur in 619 BCE.
Speaker 1:Nabopalassar then entered into an alliance with the Medes, who were the forerunners to the Acomedid Persian Empire. The Median Syracteries was able to unite the various peoples of Iran into a large and powerful army. In the end, the Iranians, khaldans and Babylonians formed an alliance that also included the Skitians to the north. This coalition of forces launched a massive combined attack in 612 BCE, finally besieging and sacking the city of Nineveh in 612 BCE, killing Sin-Shah-Ax-Shakkin, the Assyrian king. In the process, a new Assyrian king, ashour Ubalati II, who was on the throne from 612 to 605 BCE, managed to fight his way out of Nineveh and reached the northern city of Haran. Assyria resisted for another 7 years until 605 BCE, when the remnants of the Assyrian army and the army of the Egyptians were defeated at Kharkhomish Nabobalassar. The Khaldan king of Babylon now ruled all of southern Mesopotamia and the former Assyrian possessions of Syria, phoenicia, israel, cyprus and parts of Arabia. Assyria in the north was ruled by the Meads, and the Meads took control of the former Assyrian colonies in ancient Iran, asia Minor and the Caucasus.
Speaker 1:In fact, the height of the Neo-Babylonian Empire from 626 BCE to 529 BCE, was referred to as the Khaldan dynasty by the time the Babylonians had succeeded the Assyrians. The city of Cyprus was becoming more and more important as a trading center due to its location, as it was located where the Euphrates and the Tigris were at their closest points to one another. So in other words, it would have made it a lot easier to get good east, to the Iranian Plateau, as well as west and to the Levant. Furthermore, the Neo-Babylonians had kind of figured out this and therefore invested heavily in Isipar, with royal projects along with other infrastructure projects. In other words, they were just building up the region because I knew that it would ultimately help trade and it would ultimately bring wealth back to the kingdom. And it's because of this a very strong local business community had formed. In addition, it had attracted foreign merchants into the region. So it was not uncommon for a local Babylonian and a foreign-born person to intermarry. So Isipar was an important trading center for the sun god, samas, whose temple stood in the middle of the city. It also wasn't uncommon for people of the Levant, in particular the people of Judea, to trade with the temple of the god of Samas, the sun god.
Speaker 1:So you can see, when it comes to trade and even the local population, that people and the religion really appeared open-minded and was therefore open to immigration and just intermixing of different peoples. Now I wonder if this was because Nabobalassar, who, you might recall, was a Caldaian, so he himself was an outsider. So he probably saw the fact that outsiders can actually make Babylonia a much better society. Therefore he probably encouraged this intermixing of different people from different backgrounds and different religious beliefs. But in the end the people of West Semitic origin probably did better in long-distance trade because they could reduce transaction costs, and this would have been based on the sheer fact that they would have understood local trade, language and customs in places outside of Babylonia and therefore that would have given them a much easier access to foreign markets as compared to native Babylonians.
Speaker 1:Now I can understand how confusing this might sound, considering the fact that the deal of Babylonians had conquered the region of Judea and much of the Levant and in addition, they were notorious for carrying on the Assyrian practice of mass deportation. So it does seem kind of weird to me that on one hand you were very open to foreign cultures and intermarrying and immigration, and then it gets even stranger when you think a lot of the successful people in Babylonia were either foreign born or have recent ancestry to another place, but are only there because they were forced to be there. Yet they were allowed to succeed and thrive. So that's one of the big reasons why the people of West Semitic origin, the Judeans in particular, were there because they were forced to be there. So it's weird that they were forced to be there and they weren't really given restrictions and allowed to thrive. Now it's quite possible that they would have encountered some sort of bigotry or pushback from the local Babylonians, but as far as I can see, there isn't anything in the historical record to indicate that. But the thing is there are thousands of tablets that have not been read yet. So maybe they did get a lot of pushback, but for some reason they were able to overcome this and become very successful in their trade. So you can see how Mesopotamia at this time was very much practicing international trade and even international lending to a lesser extent. Now, international may seem like a bit much in the description sense. This was mostly trade that was happening in the Near East and maybe just a little bit beyond, but nonetheless it was still a trade that was happening between different states, with people that had different languages and different cultural norms and, of course, different religions.
Speaker 1:Now, unfortunately for Nebuchadnezzar, he died almost right away in 604 BCE, only one year after the victory of Kharkhamesh, so he was not on the throne long at all. He really didn't see the fruits of his revolution and his military conquest. He was succeeded by his son, who took the name of Nebuchadnezzar II, which was, after the unrelated 12th century BCE, native Akkadian Babylonian king, nebuchadnezzar I. This kind of points out that the Caldeans who had migrated into the region from the Levant had fully integrated into the native Mesopotamia culture, just like the Amrits had done a little over a thousand years prior in Babylonia. Now that really shouldn't be much of a surprise now, should it?
Speaker 1:Because, let's face it, whenever people immigrate to a new country, within a few generations they're basically fully immersed and integrated into the society. They start taking on native sounding names, they speak the language and just culturally they've assimilated. And it appears that this is kind of what happens with the Caldeans and even the Amrits. They moved into the region and within a few generations they're fully Babylonian. So we see that today people come to the United States, they come to Canada and soon enough they've integrated completely into the society. Like a perfect example is you have West Indian people move into Canada, for example, and their kids become NHL hockey players. You got people from tropical countries who've never seen snow or ice. And within one generation their kid is making millions of dollars playing in the NHL. And that shouldn't be a surprise, because things like that have been happening forever. Essentially Maybe not the NFL or the NHL or the NBA or majorly baseball, but you get the point.
Speaker 1:So anyway, I'm sorry I got off topic a little bit, but let me get back on track. So you got to understand that Nebuchadnezzar II essentially followed the mighty Neo-Issirian Empire and as such the people in the Near East, especially their vassals, wondered if these new Babylonians would be a pushover or not in comparison to the Assyrians. And, as I've mentioned numerous times, when people in foreign lands or vassals perceive weakness, they will often revolt or at the very least not pay their full tribute, which ultimately could have went to war anyway. But that's either here or there. But Nebuchadnezzar II was almost goaded into showing the might of the Neo-Babalonians and therefore he was probably most famous for his campaign in the Levant. In particular, he is known to this day for his actions against the Jewish community. He destroyed the kingdom of Judea and its capital, jerusalem, along with the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 586 BCE. The destruction of Jerusalem led him to carry on the old Assyrian tradition of mass deportation and therefore he had exiled Jews to Babylon. The Jews referred to Nebuchadnezzar as the greatest enemy they had ever faced and the destroyer of nations. Furthermore, the book of Daniel in the Bible doesn't go easy on him either, and it portrays him as the psychopath who was killing all the smartest people who he could round up I had mentioned in previous episodes concerning the Assyrian Empire the use of deportation of conquered populations in the Near East.
Speaker 1:This was particularly popular during the reigns of Tiglathblasser III and Sargon II and Sinakarib, so this would have happened really strongly between the periods of 744 BCE to 681 BCE. Now I didn't get into it too much, but I should have included the fact that the Assyrians typically used a two-way deportation system. So what happens is people were deported from a conquered land, but that would leave a vacancy, so the Assyrians would then fill that vacancy by moving people in from other lands into the conquered land. So people leaving out and people are coming in, but they are different ethnicities and cultures. So the whole point was they were trying to ensure that the newly conquered lands would be populated with people loyal to the crown and therefore they would bring stability into the region and the area. Finally, the Assyrians had kind of figured out that it was important to continue the growth of the economic prosperity in the empire. If you leave an area blank, nobody in it, then they can't farm it or they can't extract the natural resources. So you make sure you bring people in from one region to another area and hope they continue on the production. That had happened previously. Now I totally realized that this could misalign people's strengths and weaknesses into a region. So if you move a great farming people that had good pastures and good lands to grow crops and you move them into a region where mining might be the dominant economic engine of the region, well you might have a period where you're maybe not getting to a production that you should be getting otherwise. But in the end they were more concerned with stability.
Speaker 1:The Neo-Assyrian administration used deportations as a tool to meet the following goals they wanted to punish the rebellion. Obviously. They wanted to weaken the centers of the resistance. They wanted to ensure the loyalty of the deportees. They needed military conscription so people that were taken would be forced into the military, and they needed a source of craftsmen and laborers into other regions. They also wanted to populate urban centers and strategic sites, and they needed to help repopulate the abandoned areas and devastated regions which I had mentioned prior. The Neo-Babylonian deportation policies had one major difference the Neo-Babylonians didn't practice a two-way deportation system.
Speaker 1:It sounds like the Babylonians weren't interested in investing in the newly conquered territories. So, for example, nebuchadnezzar II and 603 BCE ordered the destruction of Ashgolan on the Philistine coast. However, he never invested in the reconstruction of the area. So it sounds like he was completely disinterested in the southern Levant region. And this region was very important to the empire because they were great fishermen, they were great sailors and they were great tradesmen. Also, certain people believed that Nebuchadnezzar was basically only interested in building up the city of Babylon as the capital of the known world at the time, but in all honesty, it wasn't just Babylon itself, it was also other cities and towns of Babylonia. In the end, the exiles were brought into Babylon as agricultural workers to help stimulate local economies in the region, of which one of the cities that benefited from this was the city and region of Nippur, as it became one of the main recipients of the influx of deportees. Many of these deportees had come from the southern Levant, in places like Judea, like I mentioned just a little bit ago. In fact, numerous villages located in the region of Nippur owed their existence to the neo-Babylonian deportation and economic policies. But outside the mass immigration into Nippur, he also was able to get tired of the great Venetian city-state to submit to the Babylonians. Now, despite the destruction he had brought to the Levant, he would have also considered himself a great builder. The building, mostly, would have happened in Babylonia, mind you, but the fact was he ultimately considered himself a great builder, more so than a great military general.
Speaker 1:Nebuchadnezzar II also built the famous hanging gardens for his queen to remind her of the fields and hills of her homeland back in Iran. The garden was set to have been 75 foot tall and consisted of a series of tiered platforms covered with beautiful trees and plants and flowers. Now, as such, the garden had been recognized as one of the seven wonders of the world, and it showcased the extraordinary engineering abilities of the Babylonian architects. It is thought that the garden was destroyed by an earthquake in the 2nd century. That's assuming that there was in fact a real garden to begin with, because in the end, there has not been any archaeological evidence that really suggests that this place really existed. So it's possible it did exist, and it's also possible that it was complete myth.
Speaker 1:Now, in addition to this famous garden, it was Herodotus that said that the walls of Babylon were 335 feet high and 85 feet wide, of which the walls had surrounded an approximate square city with a circumference of about 56 miles or 90 kilometers. And this is all according to Herodotus. The issue with Herodotus is anything he says you gotta really kind of take with a grain of salt. It might be real, it might not be, and, as such, scholars today believe that Babylonia, or Babylonia, should say, at the time of Nebuchadnezzar, was a walled city of approximately 4 square miles or 10 kilometers. It was also the world's largest city at the time, with a population of approximately 250,000 people or even more. Modern archaeologists say the walls were actually 5 stories, or about 50 feet or 50 meters, and the walls were about 90 feet or 27 meters thick at the base.
Speaker 1:Nebuchadnezzar was succeeded by Amel Marduk, but he was overthrown and murdered in 560 BCE, so he barely made it 2 years and therefore not a lot is known about his reign. It doesn't even appear that he was Nebuchadnezzar's oldest son, so no one was really quite sure why he was appointed the Crown Prince to begin with, but either way, it looks like he was killed by his sister's husband, n'gal Sarr Asur. This usurper was a wealthy businessman and landowner, of which he owned lands in Sipar and Urek, which was an ancient city that we had already talked about previously, and it was actually ancient by this time, to tell you how old this is. So, in the grand scheme of things, you have a situation where Nebuchadnezzar's daughter gets married to a wealthy business person, and together they are a very wealthy family, and then they usurp the throne. However, due to the fact that this is in the family line, then going through the plan to overthrow the government probably would have been a little bit more accepted and successful due to the fact that the daughter was in the line of the previous king, nebuchadnezzar. In addition, there are some accounts that Amal Marduk may have been a terrible ruler anyway, but that is really not known because there are a lot of written documents that haven't survived his reign. So, in the end, maybe he was just an awful ruler and he got killed and people were probably pretty happy. I don't know, but that's certainly a possibility and since the fact that the new ruler would have been in direct line of succession. That probably helped out quite a bit.
Speaker 1:Anyway, nurgle Sarr Asur died just shy of his fourth year on the throne. His successor, labrishi Marduk, came to the throne at a very young age. Maybe it was a little bit of immaturity, or maybe he was just a bad person, but either way, his friend had plotted against him and beat him to death because of his quote unquote evil ways. So he didn't last long. He only lasted a few months, and then from there we have Nebonitis, who was the last Mesopotamian king to rule the Near East.
Speaker 1:It's a bit of a mystery as how he came to the throne, but it is possible that he was married to one of Nebuchadnezzar's daughters. He was either a Syrian or Aramaian, but this kind of a mystery at this point. In addition, he may have had some political skill prior to this, as it's possible that he was an ambassador in Anatolia when the Median king and the Lydians had their famous battle of the eclipse in 585 BCE. But that is kind of speculation at this point, as no one is quite sure if he is the same name that is written in the record or if it's a different person. So, basically, what happened was. The Assyriologists tried to piece together how he came to the throne and figure out his backstory. But what happened is? They see people with similar sounding names and other written records, so they try to understand if this is actually the same person or not, because he is somewhat of a mystery at this point. It's possible that more written records will appear and we can kind of figure out more what happened and more about him personally, but at this point little is known about his past before he becomes the king of the Neo-Babalonians. Furthermore, it may have been his son, belchazar, who actually usurped the throne, but put his father on the throne instead of himself. Belchazar could have been the driving force who was driven by greed because after Labashi Marduk's death, much of his wealth and his estates were transferred or should I say stolen by or I guess I could say the correct term it was confiscated by Belchazar. So in other words, he saw this as a great opportunity to get extremely wealthy relatively easily.
Speaker 1:Nebonitis. Now. He was an interesting figure, if not a controversial person. First off, there are claims that he was basically insane. However, those claims appear to have been invalid because there really wasn't any documented evidence from local scribes indicating that he was crazy. He had successfully campaigned in Southern Anatolia, where he was able to bring back plunder and numerous slaves for the temples in Babylon. He was deeply fascinated in the Mesopotamian history and ordered the excavation of various sites around Mesopotamia, where he was able to unearth items dating back to Naram sin of Akkad, which would have been 2200 BCE. He was also able to find a statue that was believed to be of Sargon the Great. In fact, he has been described as the very first archaeologist ever.
Speaker 1:By the time Nebonitis was on the throne, there was a noticeable shift with regards to government interference with business. The palace was even more hands off than the Assyrians were just a few generations prior, but that hands off approach may not have applied to the temples of which the temple complex is generally derived their revenue through tithing, and they also received rent payments from the lands that they had owned, and just like the Samaritans you know we're talking 2500 years prior. The temples of the Neo Babylonian period also manufactured textiles, along with farming operations, that including cultivated date palms along with other cereals. Also, the temples employed skilled artisans who crafted metal and other goods. From a transaction standpoint, these temple complexes would have done business deals with other temples, along with private businessmen that were unaffiliated with the palace or the temple.
Speaker 1:One of the wealthiest and largest temples that were already ancient by this time was the Iana temple complex in Uruk, which was dedicated to goddess Inana or Ishtar, goddess of love and procreation and war, which is symbolized by the star Venus. This particular temple complex got even bigger during the reign of Ashurbanipal, who, you might recall, was the Neo Assyrian king from 669 to 631 BCE. This enlargement was partially derived from the fact that he had confiscated several private landowners and he would have given it to the temple as such. Iana was the largest landowner in southern Mesopotamia and because Iana had grown so wealthy and powerful, nebanitans had thought it would be a good idea to step in to try and collect some other temple revenues by redirecting a portion of their tides, tolls and other revenues straight to the palace.
Speaker 1:Furthermore, nebanitans also began to regulate the temple's planting and cultivation procedures, as he felt the temple was doing a really poor job with this production. He looked at their yields and kind of wanted the fire management, as the previous managers of the temple were only able to get mediocre harvest yields at best, and in particular, the date palm trees were producing lower and lower yields year by year. Therefore, the king felt it necessary to impose direct control over the temple agricultural possessions. Nebanitans also required regular food rations and slaves for the king and his household. In order to ensure that everything was on the open up, nebanitans also installed an officer from his palace to essentially review the temple books and records by conducting audits. So in the end, nebanitans did something that feels very modern, in that he reallocated large tracts of land that was owned by the temples to private individuals who were not affiliated or connected to the temple. But these private landowners would have had to deal with the king if production continued to decline or was unsatisfactory to his needs. As such, the production measures by Nebanitans were boasted about in his so called tariff stele from Babylon, in which he stated that favorable exchange values were realized during his reign.
Speaker 1:The stele goes on to stay At the command of Sin, who is the moon god, and became supreme deity for Nebanitans. King of the gods, a god the weather god, released the rain for me, and Ea, god of sweet water under the earth, open for me lavishly his sources wealth, fertility and plenty. He established in my country 234 liters of barley for one shekel. 270 liters of dates for one shekel. 66 liters of sesame for one shekel. 18 liters of oil for one shekel. 5 pounds of wool for one shekel. 1 pound of tin for one shekel the beer of the mountains that does not exist in my country. 18 liters of wine for one shekel of silver was the exchange value in my country. In Nebanitans's reign, the rate of barley fluctuated between 90 to 250 liters per shekel and the rate of dates was ranging up to 259.5 liters of dates per shekel as well.
Speaker 1:The tariffs deal shows that Nebanitans had concerns about the purchasing power of the shekel, as prices were subject to quite a bit of volatility and inflation. In fact, the Babylonian astronomers, who were detailed record keepers, had recorded the exchange rates of the shekel on a daily basis. Therefore, the local population would have been well aware of the local prices, along with the volatility associated with it. The fact is, the ancient Neobabalonians were constantly dealing with the supply and demand curves through the daily reality of the unpredictability of prices, as they were not set by the palace of the temple. In other words, they were priced according to market forces. They even made a study of the prices of which were shown by the commodity priceless. Even the temples, who were large landowners and were self-sufficient, appeared to be market-oriented. Some temples specialized in the production of certain goods, so some would manufacture the production of wool, others would manufacture dates and so on. With the money they earned they could pay wages and import other goods from the market, and in some certain instances they would take those raw materials and make them into finished goods to sell on the open market.
Speaker 1:However, the most stunning part of this evidence of the period is the detailed recordings of thousands of prices of wool and other foods. This evidence comes from a surprising source the meticulous work of the Babylonian scholars, who were, in quite a modern way, collecting evidence and made databases. And for the purposes of this podcast, the collection which interests us the most were the so-called astronomical diaries. These astronomical diaries are a dataset of research in the field of divination, a type of scholarship for which the Babylonians were well known for, and they were ultimately praised for as well as condemned in antiquity. They contained a notion of celestial phenomenon, followed in by the formation of other ominous events that were supposed to be related to the position of the planet, like the strokes of lightning, the direction of the wind, the births of certain individuals, the level of the Afraidis, if there was a temple robbery, famine and human and crop disease. So, in other words, an event would happen, maybe it's some macro level event like a famine or something like that, or maybe the wind blows a certain direction one day and the temple priests would say well, it's because the stars and the moon aligned in a particular way and that's what caused this phenomenon to happen. Now, with all that being said, a little bit of that woo that's going on.
Speaker 1:At the time, the one thing they did do was they were accurate record keepers and, as such, these priests would have always tracked the level of prices of certain commodities, among which were barley, dates and wool, and ultimately they took all this data that they got together whether it's the prices of a certain crop or the way the moons and the stars were aligned, and they would use this for some kind of predictive model or they can explain why certain things would have happened, such as the level of the Afraidis or even the volatility of prices. So, ultimately, the fact that these data sets were maintained, with the data sets basically on the prices, that would indicate that these prices were unpredictable and therefore were driven by market forces and therefore you would have gotten market prices and in the modern sense it gives us a good opportunity to analyze these prices so that modern historians and modern economists can get a good working idea of markets that existed back in these days, and also, too, gives us a data set on exchange rates, on how much a shackle of silver would have been exchanged for other goods. But in the end the biggest drawback was the data set was kind of written inconsistently, so sometimes you would get average prices for a month and there would be a lot of detailed information regarding those prices, such as the price at the beginning, middle and the end of the month, and then other times there wouldn't be as much data that was written down, so it was a little bit sporadic in nature and also, too, the high volatility of the prices is an indication to the fact that prices were set by the law of supply and demand and ultimately the astronomical diaries constituted a collection of data for the research into divination and futureology. One of their major concerns, apparently, was the purchasing power of a shackle in relation to basic foodstuffs such as barley dates and casu, which is a kind of a mustard used as a spice for the preparation of date beer. There was also the price of watercress and sesame, and these were all priced in liters, and in addition, there was the price of wool, which was priced in minas. So, ultimately, these records really give us a good understanding of how the market was working in the neo-Babylonian Empire, and also, too, we get information from these certain steles Now with the Tariff Stelae.
Speaker 1:I had mentioned Sin Just a few moments ago. Sin was the moon god. I think it's important to note that Nebonitis began to repair temples that was dedicated to Sin. From there, nebonitis spent a considerable amount of time which may have been 10 years, possibly in Arabia, fighting and conquering new lands. He may have made it as far south as modern Medina. So, essentially, what you have is a Babylonian king who had essentially sent himself off into self-exile, which means he would have been missing important holidays and celebration dedicated to the Babylonian gods. In the end, no one is quite sure why he had dedicated so much time and resources towards Arabia, but the fact remains is Arabia was actually in a strategic location in that there were important trade routes that ran straight through to connect Egypt to Babylon, so something that, in order to completely pacify or control the Arabian population. You would need a strong king in place for an extended period of time, versus a governor who reports to a king in Babylon. Now, the confusing part for a lot of people is, yes, arabia had all the trade routes, but the fact is they were still very sparsely populated in the region and really posed no direct threat to Babylon. And if you wanted direct access to Egypt, why not use the valuable resources for places that were close to Gaza? But while he was off in Arabia, his son, balthazar, was left backed in Babylon to rule instead. Thank you.
Speaker 1:All the while, nabernettus had encouraged Cyrus of Persia to essentially go to war with the Medes in order to keep them off of his back and there's no question, cyrus did a wonderful job with that. He did such a good job that he was able to consolidate Iran into his own Persian Empire. All the while, the Babylonian king was off in self exile in Arabia, worshipping Sin, the Moongod. In fact, people in Babylon were starting to wonder if Nabernettus was in fact trying to replace Marduk with Sin. The fact is, the New Year's festival had to be put on hold because of his absence, because the festival marks the king's annual reinstatement of Marduk's authority.
Speaker 1:It appears that once he returned to Babylon, their suspicions may have been warranted, as he may have begun to officially replace Marduk with Sin. I emphasis the word may, because there appears to be some conflicting information on this subject. Also, people are wondering why he returned in the first place. Some believe he got worried about Cyrus' expansion and others think that he may have had some kind of disagreement with his son, belsazar. However, towards the end of his reign, famine gripped the region. Nabernettus blamed this on Sin's wrath because the Babylonians were resisting his changes. Eventually, nabernettus would prepare for a Persian attack. However, despite all the preparations, babylonia fell relatively quickly, like in a few weeks. Quickly.
Speaker 1:The fall of Babylonia really started prior to this point because ultimately it really started when the Babylonian king started to be a good idea to encourage Cyrus to attack the Meads. That's really when the fall started, whether they realized it or not. Then the fall really picked up steam when Cyrus was able to take over the Meads and consolidate his power into the new Persian Empire, which ultimately the Meads and the Persians were kind of cousins, kind of similar to what the Assyrians and the Babylonians were. So the fact that they would have merged into one gigantic empire would have kind of made sense. So then this kind of really got even more concerning for the Babylonians when Cyrus was able to capture the ancient city of Sousa in 539 BCE. Sousa would have been a problem because of its location, in that it would have been close enough where it would have been striking distance into Babylonia. So anybody that had any kind of sense would have said, oh no, this is going to be a problem. We have an empire just to the east of us that is growing stronger, and they're on our borders. But the issue is Nebonitis was off into Arabia and really wasn't paying attention to things as closely as it really should have been. So then in 539 BCE, cyrus's forces besieged Opus and would have started killing the citizens and then plundering the whole entire city, taking that plunder back to Sousa. Meanwhile Cyrus's engineers started to divert the Tigris into irrigation canals, causing the water level low enough for his men to wade across the southern side of Sipar as well. So now they're going at the Sipar.
Speaker 1:The people of Sipar saw the writing on the wall and didn't want the same treatment as Opus got. So they yielded without a fight and Nebonitis apparently had saw the writing on the wall and it was like I'm out of here and he fled. Meanwhile, in Babylon, the citizens were parting up with their festival to sin and the god, nebonitis, was desperately trying to get his people to convert to. The people of Babylon had not been told that Cyrus had taken Opus in Sipar and that he was making his way towards them. Meanwhile, bausazar is in the city of Babylon and he is out there celebrating with a grand feast with thousands of his nobles and was completely oblivious as to what was going on. Now. Sometime during this grand feast, he happened to look up and saw this shocking sight of a supernatural hand inscribing something on the wall. None of his astrologers could read the writing, but when the queen mother came in, because she heard some kind of commotion going on, she immediately told Bausazar to call for the seer Daniel, who had been around for so long that he had provided counsel to Nebuchadnezzar in his prior reign. The elderly Daniel entered the banquet hall, read the writing on the wall and interpreted as your days are numbered, you have weighed in the balance and found wanting. Your kingdom is divided and given to the Meads and the Persians.
Speaker 1:At that very same time, the Persians, with its meeting allies, were gathering on the far side of the Euphrates. All the while, the Babylonians were partying in the streets celebrating the festival of sin, and they were completely unaware of their presence. Like they had done in Sitbar, their engineers diverted the rivers into the nearby canals and therefore they would have lowered the rivers low enough so that they can wait across. As they're walking across the river, the intoxicated shouts of the celebrating Babylonians maxed the sound of the noise of their forces breaking down and low gates. So, in other words, they're literally breaking down the gate and no one is even aware as to what's going on. So the citizens had no idea that their city was under attack. The Babylonians were too drunk to defend themselves and, on top of this, they were vastly outnumbered. The Persians made their way to the palace and killed Bausazar and all the Babylonian nobles.
Speaker 1:Soon after, the Persians captured Nebonidas and this is where Cyrus starts to become known as Cyrus the Great, because instead of some quick or public execution, cyrus let him live. In fact, he sent him to govern Iran's province of Karmania. This was very much a different tact than what had been done previously, and I would say it's basically a 180 to how previous rulers in the region had essentially ruled the kingdom when they took over another rival kingdom. So in the past you would have some kind of public execution or at the very least, some kind of display showing that I'm in charge now and no one is to cross me. I mean, no one has ever let a previous king live, let alone give him a satrap to govern. Some people even believe that Nebonidas may have lived to be 100 years old, so he had a long life and in reality in most circumstances he would have been cut down right then and there, or at least let live for a few more days so that they can have some kind of public execution.
Speaker 1:And the first years of Cyrus's reign. He permitted the Meads, the Syrians, the Jews and other populations that had been relocated by a previous Babylonian and a Syrian rulers to return to their homelands. Cyrus died in 530 BCE, but he left behind a massive empire with an efficient central government and provinces ruled by satraps. The satraps were just basically local governors, and under Persian rule Babylon experienced a renaissance of mathematical and scientific advancements. So while this is the end of the rule by local Babylonians and Mesopotamians in the region, that doesn't mean that Babylon had kind of receded at all. In fact, they had actually grown into a very influential city, despite the fact that now we had outside people ruling Babylon, and people will continue to rule Babylon from outside the region for hundreds of years.
Speaker 1:This has been the second installment of the Neo-Babalonian Empire. In the next episode, which will be the last episode of the Neo-Babalonians, we will get into a little bit more granular detail and discuss certain banking families and also give a little more color with regards to how government interacted with everyday life and how it affected the economic conditions of the empire. If you like what you hear and want to donate to the show, you can visit us at patreoncomhistoryofmoneybankingtrade 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.
