CHAPTER TWELVE
ECONOMY OF ANCIENT
MESOPOTAMIA
A general outline
Johannes Renger
A
ncient Mesopotamia’s economy was based on agriculture with integrated animal
husbandry. Manufacture and the production of crafted goods were of
supplementary importance. For lack of own resources, goods and materials necessary
for the reproduction of the society as a whole had to be obtained through long-
distance trade from the outside world. This comprised tin and copper for the making
of bronze, iron, gold and silver for prestige articles, as well as for payments or exchange,
timber for use in the construction of ostentatious public buildings (temples and
palaces), semi-precious and other stones for building and art purposes. The digging
of canals and the maintenance of an extensive irrigation system that encompassed the
entire alluvial plain, the building of numerous public buildings and structures, the
support of a complex administration and an army, were only possible thanks to the
surplus production of agriculture and animal husbandry.
Knowledge of the processes and institutions that gave structure to the economy
of ancient Mesopotamia is based on about 200 , 000 published legal and administrative
documents, letters and collections of laws. The earliest administrative documents date
to around 3200 BC, the latest to the Hellenistic and Arsacid periods (third century
BCand later). In addition, archaeological artefacts permit the reconstruction of the
material culture of ancient Mesopotamia and add to our perception of economic facts.
ECONOMIC THEORIES AND PREMISESThe nature of an ancient economy such as that of ancient Mesopotamia has been the
subject of theoretical discussion in which two opposing views play a role: Karl Polanyi,
the American economic historian, has argued for a fundamental difference between
modern economies governed by price-fixing markets and traditional and non-
industrialized, ancient as well as medieval economies, where the social embeddedness
of the economy determines economic activities, behaviour and motivation. Polanyi
maintains that such difference requires an adequate analytical approach to understand
the specific nature of ancient economies. For him, it is inappropriate to understand
pre-modern economies on the basis of an analytical framework derived from the
experience with an economy determined by price-fixing markets. Polanyi’s position