Episode 4: Hammurabi and the Genesis of Commerce: Exploring Trade, Banking and Wealth in Ancient Babylonia

Step back in time with us to the Old Babylonian Empire, where the framework for modern commerce and finance was first established. We'll examine Hammurabi's pivotal role, his laws aiming to protect his people while also outlining the rudimentary principles of trade and money. From laws preserving slavery to harsh penal codes for stolen goods, we'll unveil the fascinating, often harsh, realities of ancient Mesopotamian society. Those intrigued by the birth of banking will appreciate the exploration of early banking laws that set the stage for modern finance. 

The episode continues with a captivating account of trade and banking in ancient Babylonia, revealing how merchants evolved into bankers and the significant risks faced in early commerce and agriculture. We'll dive into the palace and temple bureaucracy's role in commercial activities and the strategic power shifts that occurred within historical Babylonia. Lastly, we delve into the rise and prosperity of Babylon, the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age, and how silver became a key medium of exchange that fueled civilization. Prepare for a compelling journey through history, showcasing the enduring impact of these early economic systems.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome Podcasts 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. In the end, I hope you find these discussions entertaining, but I also want you to better understand the development of today's markets from previous events. Now, in the previous episode we discussed the early days of the Old Babylonian Empire, from its humble beginnings as a village to its peak as an economic and regional powerhouse. In this next episode, I want to continue on from where we left off with Hammurabi and then walk through the history of the Old Babylonian Empire.

Speaker 1: 0:47

In the past, when I had thought of ancient Mesopotamian rulers and the society in general, I would have generally assumed that they were almost always cruel and gave extremely harsh punishments. So I always got the feeling that I was probably a very tough society to live in, especially if you're living in the time of a notorious tyrant overseeing the empire you reside in. But it's worth also noting that I kind of think that these Mesopotamian rulers were nothing more than tyrants because, in all honesty, the story that we often get is not the story of the people living in Babylonia, people around the city of Babylon, but instead what we often get is the other side of the story, and it's possible that a lot of times you're not getting the full story, obviously, when you get in the other side. So you get the conquered side and they're going to tell you how Hammurabi was, this awful person who came into the town and killed everybody and stole the goats and the sheep, but in reality it's probably a little bit more gray area somewhere in the middle.

Speaker 1: 2:00

Really sets Hammurabi apart from other former kings and even future kings, for that matter, is more or less the way he ruled. He didn't really solely rely on terror tactics to keep people under control. Instead, he was almost presenting himself as more of a modern politician, in that he wants to have the backing of the people. He wanted the people to love him more than they fear him. As such, he probably was the most famous for setting up laws that were designed to protect the people, laws that were designed to terrify them, force them into submission, and I'd like to go over a bunch of these laws, as they are really fascinating to me, as they are very progressive in some senses and very harsh in another. You're almost shocked. You're like wow, that's very modern feel. And then you read other laws, like oh yeah, that's that's kind of what I thought that the Mesopotamian laws would be. But ultimately what they really did is they set up guidelines for future commerce, money and finance these societies. You know they built upon each other. It didn't be that. Unthink that Hammurabi would set these laws up and that would be kind of the baseline going forward, and a lot of the laws and the written documents that were found from around his time we will ultimately see in the Bible. When you read the Bible you say, well, where did this come from? Well, a lot of it actually came from Abbey and even prior into Sumer. You just kind of go over a few of these just so you can kind of really get an idea of the laws that were set up.

Speaker 1: 3:46

For example, law 282 is interesting and very harsh, but it was ultimately designed to preserve the concept of slavery and, like I said previously, slavery had been around since the days of Sumeria. So this is a longstanding tradition in the region and what it read was if a slave says to his master, you are not my master, he shall be brought to account as his slave and the slave master shall cut off his ear. So that's pretty harsh. There's also personal property law, example law 6. If a man has stolen goods from a temple or a house, he shall be put to death, and he that has received the stolen property from him shall be put to death. When I first read that, I was talking to my wife about it and her first reaction was basically the same reaction I had. It was wait, what if that person didn't know that they were receiving stolen goods? However, the law does not make that distinction between an innocent and knowing receiver of stolen property. So you receive the stolen goods, you're dead.

Speaker 1: 4:56

Law 23 states that if a robber is not captured, the man who had been robbed shall, in the presence of God, make an itemized statement of his loss and the city and the governor in his jurisdiction of the robbery shall compensate him for whatever it was lost. In reality, this law was basically an insurance contract. And there's the banking stuff. One aspect of banking is taking deposits and acting as a trustee to these deposits.

Speaker 1: 5:27

Code refers to the practice of grain storage in another person's house for safekeeping and stipulates the term of the contract in strict terms. For me, the way I read it is, it almost resembles the safety deposit box that's provided by banks. So Law 120 basically states if a man has stored his barley for storage in a bin in a man's house and a loss occurs in the grainery, whether the owner of the house has opened the bin and taken the contents or whether he wholly contests the storage of the grain which had been stored in his house, the owner of the content shall formally declare his content before God. And the owner of the house must double the content in which has disappeared and give it to the owner of the content. So that's pretty interesting. So if someone steals your goods in a house, the owner that's storing it has to pay you double. From commodities to be left in deposits, such as gold and silver, the code stipulates that the content must be drawn up in the presence of a witness. 22 kind of further states that if a man wishes to give silver or gold or anything whatsoever for man for safe, he shall show anything whatsoever that gives him witness. He shall draw up a contract and thus give them for safe custody. 23 makes it clear that without a contract or witness there is no legitimate claim.

Speaker 1: 7:02

Another aspect of banking is lending, and the code points to the role of the merchant as the lender. The merchant is seen as lending money to farmers to finance operations. So Law 49 and 50 goes on to discuss how interest when lending money to farmers. Also there is some extensive trade law but some are a bit harsh. 88 says if a merchant lends grain at interest for one gore he shall receive 100 silla as interest, which is 33%. Remember, prior I said that there was a precedent set by the Royal Palace of 33%. So this you can see in the code of Hammurabi. They're basically taking that precedent that was set previously at 33% and they're basically liaising it in this code. It also goes on to punishments in place for people that exceed the amount of interest that are actually in the code itself.

Speaker 1: 8:13

Law 108 and 109 discuss wine selling, because wine was a big business back then. 88 says if a wine seller does not take grain for the price of a drink but takes money by a large weight, he makes the measurement of the drink smaller Of the grain, they shall call the wine seller to account and throw her in the river. Law 109, if a bad character is gathered in a house of a wine seller and she does not arrest them and bring them to the palace, that wine seller shall be put to death. Yikes. Law 117, if a man is in debt and sells his wife, son or daughter or binds them over to service for three years, they shall work in the house of the purchaser of the master. In the fourth year they shall be given their freedom. So this is kind of goes back to what I was talking about with the slavery how people could actually buy the way out slavery but also can force themselves into slavery to pay off a debt. And this was what also caused the problem in Lagash around 2400 BCE, because so many people got in the debt that people were basically enslaved and they eventually rose up.

Speaker 1: 9:32

Law 195 says if a son strikes his father, they shall cut off his hand. Now this makes sense because, if you remember, at the beginning of this podcast of Babylon I had mentioned that the fathers had essentially ruled over their wives and their children. This was very much expected. So this law right here kind of incorporates that into culture of the society at large. Laws 196 and 197 have a very biblical feel to them. 196 says if a man destroys the eye of another man, he shall destroy his eye. Eye for an eye. 197, if a man breaks another man's bone, they shall break his bone.

Speaker 1: 10:16

One thing I found interesting was they do have laws set up for physicians in malpractice. It's interesting because it is a lot more advanced than I ever really imagined, because the idea of having laws for physicians in malpractice was rather surprising, to be honest with you. 215 states if a physician operates on a man for a severe wound with a bronze lancet and saves the man's life, or if he opens an abscess in the eye of a man with a bronze lancet and saves that man's eye, he shall receive 10 shekels of silver. In reality, this code is basically incorporating hospital bills. Who would have thought that right? Law 218 says if a physician operates on a man for a severe wound with a bronze lancet and causes the man's death or the man's eye, they shall cut off his hand. There might not be too much of an incentive to operate on another human being, because the penalty could be quite severe. And maybe you just don't want to take that risk, or maybe it's just me, I don't know. I wouldn't do it.

Speaker 1: 11:31

The Code of Hammurabi is very interesting because it clearly recognizes private property in the form of land and goods. And I gotta be honest, before I really got fascinated into history, just honestly always assume back in those days the king was the state and therefore private property was limited at best. I guess my assumption kind of comes from the fact that the Assyrians and the Neobabalonians were so brutal in war that there probably wasn't any room for a complex economy or even law code to protect ordinary citizens. But the complex Babylonian economy with its merchants, agents and farming could not function without private property rights along with enforcement of those rights. The fact is, courts regularly adjudicated property disputes and other business disputes on a regular basis. Some of these disputes or lawsuits could have spanned decades before a decision was made. That's amazing to me that a case could be tied up in the courts for literally decades before a case was finally adjudicated. When you have strong institutions set in place and they are working as design, this may actually lower transaction costs and therefore increase trade. From my point of view, the state of Old Babylonia may have had an essential role in lowering transaction costs and enabled lending operations due to its legal framework as set forth in the Code of Hammurabi. The only downside to that would have been the clean slate decrease, which would have reversed some of that or at least lending to risky of an operation. But all in all, the Code of Hammurabi really set in place a legal framework for the economy and society to thrive, because people understood what they could and could not do and there was a set of if illegal happened, have a means to get the adjudicated in the court system.

Speaker 1: 13:59

In Old Sumerian documents a serialogist, w F Lehman, noted that the Domkara's, or the traders that I had mentioned previously, are only found as traders. But private business began to flourish after the beginning of the Third Dynasty of Ur, so this is after 2000 BCE. The Domkara's were the obvious people to assume the function of giving credit Time of Hammurabi's Babylonian laws. In many cases the Domkara's not just traveling traders but were also money lenders. He also concluded that the development of the merchant into the banker that is, a money lender or an investor backing voyages or other similar partnerships it's a natural evolution and that there is no essential difference between these two professions. Surely not the Babylonia, where in principle no distinction was made between silver, honor terms, marketable commodities.

Speaker 1: 15:07

In a society whose commerce is little developed, trade is only carried on by the merchants who buy and sell. There is not a banking class. In a more primitive economy, commerce increases, the business of a merchant assumes much larger proportions, so that merchant will naturally evolve into a lender. And it makes sense because as a merchant grows and accumulates more wealth and assets and resources, the merchant can either sit on the assets or resources or it can make money on those assets and resources. So it would make sense that the merchant would evolve into the banker itself. And that's kind of really what a serial just WF Lehman is basically stating, also to what we're really seeing and the documents that have been recovered.

Speaker 1: 16:03

Many merchants rose to the position of being able to supply to others. But you can't think of this as a typical modern banker quite yet. The Tamkara or the Damkara were merchants, did not lend out the positive others but worked with their own funds. In other words, individuals who accumulated savings had to find suitable investments personally or participate in partnerships. Eventually these merchants formed guilds to coordinate their trading activities in foreign regions. However, there really wasn't liquid investment opportunities for those who accumulated excess savings as there were no formal money managers outside of families. Kind of a little bit in the primitive economy at this point. But you can kind of see how the merchant class is clearly evolving into the banker class To commerce or agriculture.

Speaker 1: 17:05

Nearly everyone was subject to risk in one form or another. Farmers faced a possibility of a drought, flooding or military hostilities. Luckily, everyone in Babylonia, due to the Coda, hammurabi, were essentially under a state insurance protection, at least in Babylonia. Rents and fees owed to other institutions and other creditors were often annulled in these circumstances. So if a disaster strikes, the temple or the palace will step in and prevent basically the population from going under Commercial sphere. When ships were often lost at sea or caravans were robbed, commercial laws from Babylonia really down through the Roman times freed the traveling merchants from the obligation to repay back their backers, and this is something I discussed prior. A voyage would be invested into, the ship would sink in the sea. The merchants would not be obligated to pay back the investor, but of course this could potentially lead to fraudulent claims by certain long distance merchants.

Speaker 1: 18:19

In Babylonia around the time of Hammurabi, a serialogist, johann Regehr, explained that the entrepreneurs to whom the palace had least heard and workshops tended to be the members of the elite or upper classes. Throughout these discussions it starts to become obvious that, or at least presume that, the title of Tamkhram merchant presupposed social status and also connections to the palace or at least the temple bureaucracy. Some managers worked in the palace bureaucracy directly. Others worked entirely on their own account. So they would have had some kind of separation from the actual temple or the palace and didn't necessarily have the backing of said temple or palace, but ultimately they still would have had connections or at least given permission to act on their own accord. You couldn't just do it, or some wealthy person and just wanted to get into the business of buying and selling goods in town or overland into a foreign country. You had to actually have explicit permission by the temple or the palace. It's during this time, obviously, that aid in Babylon is thriving and the society at large is also thriving.

Speaker 1: 19:39

Babylonia Empire had expanded and without really knowing it, at the time of the reign of Hammurabi this would ultimately be the peak of the old Babylonian Empire. That really goes to the fact that in the ancient days one great leader could really drive the bus and make it a relatively small or say average city-state. It could make that thrive, expand and become a regional superpower Like Sargon. Once you die, the leadership that takes over often the sun or at least some kind of direct descendants or relative, often doesn't have the skill set to really drive that bus just the way the previous leader did. Hammurabi had died, the empire started its slow decline, and this is the same scenario with Sargon the Great. After he had died, the empire held on for a little bit, but in reality it started its slow death right after his particular death, and you see the same thing in Hammurabi.

Speaker 1: 20:50

Around 1595 BCE, the Hittites descended down from the Euphrates River, from Anatolia, and what they did is they bypassed Assyria directly and sacked the town of Babylon, or I should say city of Babylon, and they ejected the former Amorite leaders and founders of the Babylonian state in the process. The interesting thing is you would think that I'd sacked Babylon, that they would just incorporate it into its domain and really expand their own little empire. But they didn't really do that, which is interesting. So what they did and said is they actually passed control to their Kassai allies went on to rule Babylonia for the next four centuries. It appears that the Hittites had figured that Babylon was just too far from Anatolia, decided it would be better to hand control to their allies instead. It also didn't help when Babylon was being conquered, that unrest was taking place at home, which meant the Hittites had to hurry up and get back to Anatolia, where the Hittite king would end up being assassinated anyway.

Speaker 1: 22:07

From 1500 BCE, a dynasty of Kassai kings took control of Babylon and unified Sumer into the kingdom of Babylonia. Not much is really known about the Kassaits except that they were great horsemen from the Zagros Mountains. The Kassai rule, the Babylonian cities continued to be the centers of great education and produced writings of nation, astrology, medicine and even further mathematics. It was also during this time period that the Kassai kings had regular correspondence with the Egyptian pharaohs and appeared to be allies with the Egyptians, their Kassai allies to the north, the Hittites. They went to war with Egypt and Ramesses, the second in particular. It's a kind of weird thing, but on a side note, with the Hittites they measured sheep. So I started to see back in these days really kind of figure out what was most important to societies on how they valued wealth. So the Hittites actually measured in sheep, which I find kind of interesting and unusual, but it would make sense if sheep were the most valued commodities of their region and era.

Speaker 1: 23:21

What happened was the Hittites and the Egyptians had went to war, and the famous battle of Qadesh, which occurred around 1274 BCE, was known as the largest cherry of battle ever fought to that date, as they estimate that approximately five Tizk and chariots in total had participated in the battle, and the battle itself was over trade routes, as the Hittites and the Egyptians fought to control the trade routes in the Levant. To give you an idea exactly where it was, this battle would have occurred on the modern Lebanon and Syria border. In reality, though, I mean, I look at this fight as just a thoroughly modern thing. They were fighting over trade routes, which meant that they were fighting over money, they were fighting over wealth. It's really no different than what you see in today's society. The Hittite prosperity was very much dependent upon who controlled those trade routes and the metal sources that came with them, but unfortunately for the Hittites, the Egyptians ended up coming out on top started the downfall of the Hittite kingdom. That kingdom was overrun by the Assyrians. With the rise and strength of the Assyrians, the Kassai control, babylon, was soon challenged as well. Also, it's around this time of the Kassai rule that we start to see the rise of silver as a real currency.

Speaker 1: 24:48

For the most part, silver was used more in the long distance trade and, as we previously mentioned, commodities were often priced in silver for the purpose of commercial record keeping. It should be known that silver was not found in Mesopotamia, which shouldn't be much of a surprise considering that, as I mentioned previously, that region of the world was very much limited in resources. Ultimately, it would be attained through various mechanisms, either by conquest, plunder, taxation and international trade. We call Babylonian textiles were an important export during this time period To easily be imported through the textile trade right. So you're you're selling Textiles in a foreign land, in Anatolia, you're trading the textiles for a silver, so the silver's brought back. I mean, it's the same thing with the gold standard when we get into gold standard years later. But if you're exporting a lot of goods, you're gonna end up importing a lot of gold, and that in itself led to a lot of problems, but that's not for a few thousand years.

Speaker 1: 25:56

So ultimately, the availability silver was often an engine that helped drive the ancient economies. In addition, it appears that it was the scarcity of the silver that coincided with periods of economic and political weakness, not unlike the gold standard of today. So when gold reserves plummeted, you'll see international economies that were under attack. Essentially so we see this in the late Bronze Age in Babylonia under the casites, when Silver with scarce gold started actually to become a substitute and thus became more important in trade. In fact, one could make the case that it was the silver scarcity that may have led to the reason the casites were able to wrestle power away in Babylonia in the first place. Also, in ancient society, scarcity of silver often meant a sign of weakness. Once again, I'm gonna foreshadow here, but this would become a particular concern at the tail end of the Western Roman Empire, when silver decreased in value and gold became the leading metal.

Speaker 1: 27:05

And it is also around this time that Assyria began its slow rise to power, as, as its power rose, the king's power rose in Assyria and that the Assyrian king actually came to Babylon to remove the casite rulers. The Assyrian king was able to sack the city of Babylon, and by doing so he actually destroyed the city in the process. This had actually angered the Assyrian people, as they did not want to see Babylon destroyed. And Although the Assyrians considered themselves of separate people from the Babylonians, they had a deep respect for the Babylonian culture. In fact, they viewed Babylon as a sacred place. It was a serialogist, hwf scags, that stated that Babylonia was the source and center of civilization. So city of Babylon was a religious shrine of the highest sanctity. Babylon in the ancient world was sort of like sacking Vatican or Jerusalem or Mecca in our time.

Speaker 1: 28:09

So you can understand, when you look at it through the lens of the modern person, how people would be very upset that the king went way too far by desecrating the city of Babylon. It would just be like if the United States had, inadvertently or purposely, military strikes and Destroyed Jerusalem. Could you imagine how upset people would be in this country, in the United States, if that happened? I don't know it's, maybe it's just me, but when I read a lot of these stories in history I like to kind of really view it from the modern lens and kind of compare and contrast certain places or things that happen nowadays to really try to understand how people For a thousand years would have felt. And I'm pretty sure that if One was destroyed, that people in the United States, and around the world for that matter, would be highly upset. Imagine if that would have happened. What's one of the things that would happen? I mean, for example, the Cathedral in France, notre Dame was destroyed by fire a few years ago. Think about the out crying of support for that Cathedral. How much money has been sent in to restore it, the work that's being done to restore. So you could imagine that if people were upset about that, how people would have felt about Babylon being destroyed and what would take place afterward, of which they did, in fact, restore Babylon, but it came with a lot of confusion because Syrian King basically failed to establish a a lasting domination of Babylon and because of that, the Elon light King had basically up the heights. They went south to Nippur and destroyed the city itself.

Speaker 1: 30:04

How the Assyrians, in a difficult situation, because they basically had lost control of Babylonia. What they tried to do, the Assyrians, is they basically tried to put puppet rulers in Babylonia, but each time they put a puppet ruler on the throne it really kind of didn't work and they were basically deposed one after the other until 1217 BCE and then in 1208 BCE the Assyrian King was assassinated, resulted in basically internal turmoil. Syria, the Kings of Babylon, were able to take advantage of that turmoil and Troll back to Babylonia without the actual interference by the Assyrians. But so around that time, something much bigger is happening in the Near East Just a few years later after the assassination of the Assyrian King. Get into the late Bronze Age collapse.

Speaker 1: 31:15

Not a lot is known about this, but it caused a massive destabilization to any city or civilization that was near the Mediterranean Sea, as it was attacked by an Unknown people that have been given the name the Sea Peoples. To this day, no one really knows where these people came from or who they were. There is a ton of speculation, but no one knows for sure that it could be a gene tribes. It could be raiders from Central Europe, or Could be just gathered soldiers who turned to piracy or became refugees or even migrants from some far-off place. Who knows? No one knows. One thing we do know is that they were extremely destructive and disruptive to all the ancient societies in general. This caused many of the former great umpires to recede back away from the Mediterranean and, luckily for the people of Babylonia and even Sumer, they weren't in the crosshairs of the Sea Peoples like the Phoenicians, the Egyptians and the Lydians, just to name a few. So when you factor in the Disruption that is caused by the Sea Peoples and the fact that the Assyrian king was assassinated not too long ago. This would have essentially meant that Assyria would have been completely out of the picture, at least for the time being, and it was also during this time that the Elamites basically were able to come in and Troll Babylon. In 1155 BCE, the statue of Marduk that got a Babylon was taken from Babylon and taken back to Elam. This was a major concern for the people of Babylon and Even for the people of Assyria because, don't forget, they viewed the Babylonians in such high regard. This effectively ended the Babylonian rule by.

Speaker 1: 33:16

The Cassites had ruled Babylonia for hundreds of years. However, despite the Sea Peoples ravishing the Levant and Egypt and their god taken hostage, babylon had actually entered an era of prosperity and peace. What is interesting is looking back at the Elamite and Cassite rule. It reminds me a lot of how the Amorites had ruled, in that some of the great works of literature were being done during that period. In fact, much of the literature compiled in this time was Eventually used as templates for biblical stories.

Speaker 1: 33:59

Also around this time period that we start to move from the Bronze Age to the early Iron Age, time period eventually included the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar I. They briefly warred with Assyria but eventually made peace, that is, the Babylonians and the Assyrians went to war and they basically smoothed everything out and made their peace. Initially, nebuchadnezzar had a few battles with Elam, but his army had suffered heavy losses due to a plague. That is something I always forget and when you read the story you think, oh yeah, this is antiquity. You read over and over about how societies and armies could be literally stopped dead in their tracks because of some global plague that could wipe out 10 to 50 to 70% of the local population. Either way, babylonians and Nebuchadnezzar were able to regroup and by 1121 BCE Nebuchadnezzar I was able to recover Marduk from Elam as being held in their capital of Susa.

Speaker 1: 35:16

I think it's a good time to take a step back and just kind of really evaluate what this meant to the people of Babylonia. So you got to understand from their perspective that they believed that their god was being held captive, or maybe the god had chosen to stay in a foreign land away from Babylon. This was a major problem for the people and god back was of the highest priority. But also a little perk to getting your god back from a foreign land that was taken is when you capture a city the soldiers and the people of Babylon were able to plunder Susa and Elam in general. So the ultimate reward was they got their god back and maybe less important, but still important anyway, was the people of Babylon were able to gain wealth and expand their empire Because, let's not forget, for millennia went to war and plunder was often a great business decision worked out in your favor, of course, but in the grand scheme of things, plunder was often used as a driving force or at least a reason why you went to war with another city or state or whatever you want to say, a neighbor.

Speaker 1: 36:43

You want to plunder because you are getting short on cash or resources to yourselves, and sometimes they viewed plunder as kind of a desperate situation. I mean, it's not a desperate situation because ultimately they wanted to recover their god, but you get the added benefit as well. They've enabled it to basically get back on track. As a result, there was a long period of peace between Assyria and Babylonia. However, by 1075 BCE, there was actually a new threat in the region, as the Aramans from the central regions of modern Syria began to plunder cities in Assyria and Babylonia. This caused Assyria and Babylonian to join forces to fight the Aramans and other raiders, including the Chaldeans. So from around 1020 to 730 BCE.

Speaker 1: 37:39

Not as a lot is known about Babylonia, as it appears that it suffered from a lot of political instability. It also appears that a lot of former nomadic shepherds had moved into the region and settled down. It also appears that Assyrians would have often come down in Sax cities and northern Babylonia. So, in the grand scheme of things, for these 300 years, babylonia is obviously not a major power region. But it's also during this time that we start to see Assyria reemerge and Tildeght Puleser III, who came to rule in Assyria at 730 BCE, that basically changed things up by installing a meritocracy in Assyria, and therefore Assyria was able to get capable leadership and, as a result, had become the dominant superpower in the region. As such, assyria was once again able to march on to Babylon and take control of Babylon. This is really when we see the heights of the Neo-Assyrian Empire take control, and it was around this time that the economy of Babylon also changed.

Speaker 1: 39:00

For well over a thousand years, silver was an important metal. It wasn't a medium of exchange. It was more or less used for accounting purposes. As I mentioned prior, people would measure the value in certain goods in silver. But it is around this time, during the reign of the Assyrians, the Neo-Assyrians, I should say that silver moved from a prestigious item to more of a formal means of a medium of exchange.

Speaker 1: 39:37

And it almost feels like this had to happen because, as productivity increased for thousands of years now and trade was increasing as well, the idea of using a grain as a medium of exchange really couldn't have made a lot of sense over the long haul. Essentially, trade and productivity got too big for grain to be a medium of exchange. Because grain had a lot of issues, obviously right, it could rot, it could be eaten by rodents or insects and as a result, it doesn't really have the store of value that one would expect from a solid currency or a solid money. The fact is is using a grain as a medium of exchange can be a problem because the grain could actually break down or dissipate and therefore the cost of preserving it would be higher than that of a metal that would last longer without the added need of keeping it in a safe place that would keep it clear of other animals or just the elements in general. So this really led to a broader civilisation throughout antiquity, as silver was being used in all sorts of different transactions anyway, not even just long distance trade. By then it was used in local trade and also silver had become a common and stable commodity, which also fueled its rise as a form of currency. However, other grains were also being used as commodities for monetary systems as well by this time, but silver ultimately kind of took the lead in that respect. Mind, silver was not native to the area, so it had to be imported from other places like Anatolia or even Persia, iran. But either way, silver had basically taken the lead as a form of payment, as its workers were being paid according to the weight or its equivalent in foodstuffs such as cereals. So ultimately, what we see is the economies in the ancient world, especially in Mesopotamia, basically fully converted from a payment of medium exchange from grains to silver Enough.

Speaker 1: 42:13

Babylon was about to enter its next great phase, the phase most people probably are familiar with the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Before we get into the Neo-Babylonians, we will get into the next episode, which will be the Assyrian Empire. I want to thank you for taking your time to listen to this episode of the Old Babylonian Empire. I truly hope you found this to be informative and entertaining, if you like what you hear and want to donate to the show. You can visit us at patreoncomsh history of money banking trade or you can visit our website at moneybankingtradecom. Also, you can help to show out a ton by leaving a 5 star review. Thank you very much. Talk to you soon.