an accurate comparison. There is not a total famine, as lead bowls appear in some of
the Jemdat Nasr or ED 1 graves at Ur, and a few simple copper tools are known from
Jemdat Nasr itself (Matthews 1999 : 43 ). The limited evidence from the Jemdat Nasr
period may point to foreign, Arabian merchants as the carriers of what little copper
there was (see below). It is only in the later Early Dynastic period that we can again
be certain that professional merchants were operating out of Sumer.
The evidence from the Arabian peninsula suggests that, post-Uruk, the search for
metals was now concentrated here rather than up the Euphrates or eastwards onto the
Iranian plateau. Susa no longer had such close ties with the south either. The mountains
of the United Arab Emirates and Oman are rich in copper and also produce carnelian
and decorative hard stones such as black diorite. Finds of typical painted Jemdat Nasr
pottery, a type of pot found on the southern plain after the Uruk collapse (cf. Crawford
1998 : 35 for refs.), mark the route travelled by these goods from the Arabian mines to the
coast, where they could be trans-shipped to Mesopotamia. We do not know who the
merchants were. The fact that much of this pottery is associated with small free-standing
conical graves built of rough stone in a local style may suggest that many of those who
carried the goods were natives of Arabia who had acquired the attractive vessels and their
contents from Sumer in exchange for their metals. On the other hand, it is possible that
the exchanges took place on the coast of the Arabian peninsula.
New evidence from the beginning of the third millennium provides clear evidence
from the southern plain for the movement of goods within the Sumerian plain. No
doubt this had taken place earlier, but is not recorded. The exact nature of this move-
ment is unclear, but it appears that a number of cities may have joined together to
supply the central religious site of Nippur with small amounts of foodstuffs and textiles
(Matthews 1999 : 51 ). Their activities are documented on thirteen tablets from the
southern site of Jemdat Nasr and by a very specific type of cylinder seal impression
found on them which is decorated with pictograms representing the names of the cities
involved. Similar impressions are also found at Uruk and in the Seal Impression Strata
at Ur, which is probably a little later in date (Matthews 1993 : 40 ). The group’s activities
do not seem to have been restricted to the plain as a number of possible examples of
city sealings are known from Susa (Matthews 1993 ) and one such impression has
recently been found on a door sealing at Konor Sandal in the region of Jiroft in the
Halil basin of Iran (Pittman in Madjidzadeh with Pittman 2008 : 100 ). This suggests
that external ventures could also be organised on a co-ordinated basis and that
merchants from Sumer were present here. It is perhaps relevant in this context to note
that plain steatite/chlorite vessels, many of which appear to have originated in this part
of Iran, are found in graves at Ur from the Jemdat Nasr period onwards (Kolbus 1983 ).
The Early Dynastic period, conventionally dated from c. 2 , 800 to 2 , 350 and
subdivided into four parts,^2 saw sharply rising levels of prosperity and a huge increase
in demand for imported goods. Over this time, we see a growing market in the raw
materials for luxuries such as jewellery and precious metal to meet the requirements
of a newly affluent sector of society. There is also a marked expansion in the use of
base metals for tools and weapons and an increasing demand for high-quality building
timbers to roof the new public buildings. The imported goods came from different
areas and a number of routes seem to have been in use simultaneously. As the evidence
is greater than for previous periods, we will deal with it by geographical location as well
as chronologically to try to clarify the position.
–– Harriet Crawford ––