Assyrian Empire: Trade at Kültepe-Kanesh (Taxes, Tolls, Duties)

Following up on Assyrian Empire: Economy & Taxation of the Ancient Mesopotamian Kingdom, this week we'll cover trade at Kültepe-Kanesh, a complex trade network established between the city of Ashur and Anatolia.

—

The Assyrian Empire reached its height from 800-700 BC and included Babylonia, Elam, Media, Syria, Palestine and Arabia, along with South Anatolia, Cilicia and Egypt.

Both Assyria and Babylonia shared a common language known as Assyro-Babylonian or Akkadian.

Babylonia, the southern kingdom, occupied the plain between Baghdad and the Persian Gulf. With the turn of the millennium, Assyria gained control of the whole Mesopotamian region but lost it to Neo-Babylonia (c. 587?BC).

The most important physical features of both Assyria and Babylonia was the Tigris and Euphrates river systems. Life in both kingdoms depended heavily, and, in many cases was at the mercy of the flow of the rivers.

The rivers provided a stock of fish and the general landscape was suitable for grazing sheep, goats and cattle. The mountains of Assyria provided ample building materials and also contained rich mineral deposits.

Both the Tigris and Euphrates were utilized as means of transportation and many boats are known, mostly from models. Sails never are actually shown, though part of the hull structure in some boats suggests the presence of a mast.

Under?Erishum I?(r. 1974-1935 BC), Ashur experimented with?free trade, quickly establishing itself as a prominent trading city in northern Mesopotamia?and soon thereafter establishing an extensive long-distance trade network.

Among the evidence left from this trade network are large collections of cuneiform tablets from Assyrian trade colonies, consisting of a set of 22,000 clay tablets found at?Kültepe, near the modern city of?Kayseri?in Turkey.

Kültepe-Kanesh was the administrative center of the complex trade network established between the city of Ashur and Anatolia during the first quarter of the second millennium B.C. As such, Kültepe-Kanesh became the core settlement for Assyrian merchants.

To facilitate trade, it was common for merchants to move from Ashur to Kanesh. An Assyrian trader could probably make the 620 mile distance between Assur and Kültepe in six weeks, travelling through donkey caravans.?Though the traders had to pay road taxes and tolls to the various states and rulers in the lands in-between, the Assyrians sold many of their goods at double the price, or even more.

Some of the taxes Assyrian merchants were supposed to pay: transport and import taxes upon arrival in Kanesh, tolls and duties on goods and persons en route and an export tax upon departure from Ashur.

The agreement struck between Kanesh and Ashur regulated the activities of the trade in terms of authorized or prohibited goods as well as in terms of taxes to be applied to transactions. Iron was a rare and expensive metal costing up to 7 times the price of gold – and lapis lazuli, extracted from distant Afghanistan, were sold under state monopoly.

The Assyrian economy was built on textiles, tin, lead, and grain that they traded for stones and metals.?

The basic unit of currency was the shekel, which is a weighted value in silver equivalent to about 8.33 grams of silver. The value of money was based on the weight of the metal used, and the coins were stamped with images of the king and symbols of the empire to indicate their authenticity.

To sustain their long-distance activities, the merchants needed to communicate... the most efficient and fastest information sharing devices were inscribed tablets.

The message typically contains instructions from one merchant to his trading partner about the forthcoming shipment: the types and quantities of goods, their unit price and the applicable exchange rates, practical arrangements for the caravan and its staff in terms of accommodation and subsistence, even including the fodder for the donkeys.

Following the Great Flood (c. 2100 BC), which destroys all of humanity except the family of Noah, Genesis 10 presents a family tree in the form of a branched or segmented genealogy, tracing the descendants of Noah’s three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, and their descendants. Many of these names become future nations, tribes, lands and cities, known to us from elsewhere in the Bible and from extra-biblical sources: Accordingly, this chapter is referred to as the “Table of Nations.”

In the Book of Genesis, the mountains of Ararat is the term used to designate the region in which Noah's Ark comes to rest after the Great Flood (c. 2100 BC), which destroys all of humanity except the family of Noah.

From these eight people …. Noah, his sons and their wives …? the whole earth was populated.

Ham's son, Cush, was the father of Nimrod, who was the first heroic warrior on earth. Nimrod built his kingdom in the land of Babylonia, with the cities of Babylon, Erech, Akkad, and Calneh. From there he expanded his territory to Assyria, building the cities of Nineveh, Rehoboth-ir, Calah, and Resen (the great city located between Nineveh and Calah).

King Shamshi-Adad V (r. 824–811 BC) was the builder of the temple of?Nabu?at?Nineveh.

—

About the Author: Lawrence Jean-Louis is the founder of eBrand Me, a digital marketing agency offering marketing & consultative services to CPAs and tax professionals. She aspires to start a money management firm by 2030.