Chapter 4
Land of gold
If Mesopotamia boasts the earliest civilization, the lower Nile River valley is
credited with being second by only a few centuries. Egypt and Mesopotamia
shared many similarities, but in long-distance trade, they also show many
differences. Mesopotamia was bordered by diverse environments containing a
variety of raw materials and peoples. Egypt was surrounded by desert, a
comparatively sterile environment supporting few potential trading partners.
Egypt opened to the outside world only at two main points. Control over the
Nile delta meant a monopoly over trade north into the Mediterranean and
eastward to Asia. On the other side, control over the entry to the cataract
region in the south meant a monopoly over trade with Nubia and the
interior of Africa. This was a very different situation from Mesopotamia,
where numerous routes criss-crossed, and it was impossible to monopolize the
multitude of entry points except under a powerful empire like the Akkadian.
Geography determined that the Egyptian economy would be far less
impacted by foreign trade than the economy of Mesopotamia, but Egypt was
never completely isolated even in the period before the rise of the pharaohs.
In thefifth millenniumBCE, Upper (southern) Egypt traded with nearby
desert regions importing metals, pigments, and beads of jasper and carnelian,
as well as shells from the Red Sea and ivory from Nubia in exchange for
finely made eggshell-thin pottery. In the fourth millennium, the city of
Maadi at the base of the Nile delta in Lower (northern) Egypt served as the
nodal point for trade with Sinai and Palestine. Copper and turquoise arrived
from Sinai carried on donkey caravans by local tribesmen, and there was a
steady trickle trade with Palestine for products such as wood, wine, and olive
oil. At the time, Palestine enjoyed overland contacts stretching north to
Syria and beyond to Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and Iran. Maadi seems to have
traded more with Palestine than with Upper Egypt as witnessed by the
obsidian trade: obsidian coming into Lower Egypt originated in Anatolia,
but obsidian used in Upper Egypt came from the areas of modern Yemen
and Eritrea.
In the late fourth millenniumBCE, the struggles between warrior groups
up and down the Nile Valley for control over internal trade and access to