After a brief period of invasion and disorganization, the Akkadian Empire
was replaced by a state centering on the Sumerian city of Ur that dominated
Mesopotamia for about a century (2100– 2000 BCE) and is referred to as Ur
III (the Third Dynasty of Ur). It is a classic example of a state-administered
economy, a highly centralized, bureaucratic structure in which external trade
was the monopoly of the government, and merchants were government
employees. The so-called“wool office”of Ur was a tightly controlled system
of mass production that by one estimate employed 12,000 weavers and
handled 6,400 tons of wool, producing a commodity directed mostly for
foreign trade. Although by local standards they were considered to be of med-
iocre quality, these textiles were much in demand among highland peoples.
The collapse of Ur loosened the trading connections into and out of
southern Mesopotamia, creating a vacuum private enterprise rushed tofill.
Conveniently coming at the break between the third and second millennia
BCE,it is sometimes used as an expedient cross-over point for the shift from a
principally state–temple controlled system of external trade to a mainly
profit-driven entrepreneurial system. This is a matter for debate, however,
with the transition point sometimes seen to have occurred much earlier in
the third millennium or much later at the end of the second.
The earliest and best example of second millennium private enterprise was
the Old Assyrian–Cappadocian trading system. This operated in thefirst two
centuries of the millennium, 1,000 years before the Assyrians conquered a
great empire. These early Assyrians lived on the middle Tigris in the city
state of Assur, which was strategically located along trade routes running
north across the Taurus Mountains into the region of Cappadocia on the
Anatolian plateau. Anatolia was divided at the time into small kingdoms; a
reported 20 Assyrian trading colonies were located in proximity to the
palaces of these kingdoms, the most important one being at Kanesh
(Kultepe) about 700 miles from Assur. Modern historians would not have
even guessed at the existence of the Old Assyrian–Cappadocian commercial
system, one of the most important in the ancient world in helping to
understand the mechanics of trade, except for the discovery of private
archives at Kanesh, from which about 20,000 tablets have been unearthed.
The trade, which was in metals and textiles, was probably initiated by
Mesopotamian merchants seeking silver as Anatolia had the greatest supplies
of silver-bearing ores in southwestern Asia. The Anatolians also had a
plentiful supply of copper but needed tin for making bronze. This was pro-
vided by the Assyrian merchants. Initially this trade probably required the
strong centralized authority of a state, but as bronze became increasingly
used for practical purposes and not just for status or ritual products, its
demand became more widespread, and control slipped into the hands of
private traders.
The origin of the tin, which was so central to this trade, has not been
pinpointed since no local deposits of this metal were available in
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