The floodplains of Mesopotamia (a region that included Babylon) were perfect for high food production. The economy was based on agriculture, mainly on the cultivation of barley. Barley was used as a means of payment for wages and in daily rations, and was also used as the basis for the manufacture of a natural drink:beer. Other products were oil (linseed, sesame), flax, wheat and vegetables. Flocks of sheep and goats grazed in the fields out of season. Cattle grazed when there was enough water. Wool production was extensive, and converted into pieces of fabric. Only the extreme south of Mesopotamia had a different economy, based on date palms and fishing.
There were no records in stone until the end of the Stone Age. The region lacked mineral and wood resources, which are essential for the construction of large monuments and more resistant buildings. Over time, the Mesopotamians had more and more need for these materials, which came from far away; or the forests of Lebanon or the mountains of modern Iran. These mountains were rich in minerals, stones and metals. What a country does not have, it must try to get by other means, and these are basically tribute, plunder and trade.
Tax and loot
There are two basic ways to obtain the materials that countries need:through war or trade. Such materials are usually demanded as tribute or taken for loot after a military expedition. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the legendary king of Uruk, tells that he went to the forests of the monster Humbaba, and defeating him, he probably got the wood to build the famous walls of Uruk. Another famous king, Lugalbanda, demanded for his victories the exchange of grain for precious stones.
Commerce
Military expeditions were carried out after the harvest, usually on an annual basis and especially in the First Millennium when farmers could become soldiers. Minerals (copper, tin, silver, a black stone called diorite, etc.) were available in distant areas, so campaigns had to be considered very carefully so as not to be costly or leave cities at the mercy of other enemies. Commerce then began to be practiced. In texts from around 19000 BC, there are indications that trade begins to be carried out in a professional and capitalist way, with business being carried out by boats along the Euphrates and the Persian Gulf and regular caravans of donkeys heading to Anatolia (modern Turkey ).
Goods
Aside from grain, the inhabitants of Mesopotamia had little to offer. Grain was exported, but too heavy to be carried by donkeys over long distances. Materials imported from other places were exported again, such as tin, an important metal for the manufacture of bronze, which probably came from Afghanistan at that time, and was exported to Anatolia (Turkey) - a great center of the metals industry, where the forests were abundant to run furnaces. Other common goods were dates, sesame oil, and handicrafts. Babylon had a great wool industry. Pieces measuring 4 to 4.5 meters were transported by the hundreds around 1900 BC.
Babylon was the birthplace of one of the first great civilizations in history. It developed in the region bathed by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which is part of the so-called Fertile Crescent. Babylonian Civilization