Old Assyrian trade network and the karum of Kanesh
- Date
- c. 1950–1750 BCE
- Category
- Economy & trade
- Region
- Assyria and Anatolia (Iraq/Turkey)
- Era
- Ancient Civilizations
- Significance
Merchants from the city-state of Assur built one of the earliest documented long-distance commercial networks, linking Mesopotamia with central Anatolia by donkey caravan.
Their principal hub was the karum (trading colony) at Kanesh (modern Kultepe in Turkey), a self-governing merchant quarter beside the local Anatolian town. Assyrian traders exported tin and fine textiles and brought back silver and gold, while operating sophisticated credit, partnership and profit-sharing arrangements. The roughly 22,000 cuneiform tablets excavated at Kanesh—private letters, loan contracts, accounts and legal disputes, many sealed in clay envelopes—constitute the largest archive of the early second millennium and reveal a commercial society in which women managed household textile production and businesses in Assur while husbands traded abroad. The records illuminate early commercial law, taxation, family firms and the spread of cuneiform literacy through trade.
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Empires active in c. 1950–1750 BCE
- Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (Oxus Civilization)2250 BCE – 1700 BCE
- Indus Valley (Harappan) Civilization2600 BCE – 1900 BCE
- Elamite Kingdom2700 BCE – 539 BCE
- Xia Dynasty2070 BCE – 1600 BCE
Related economy & trade events
- Meluhha: Indus Trade with Akkadian Mesopotamiac. 2400-2300 BCE
- Hatshepsut's expedition to the Land of Puntc. 1469 BCE
- The Uluburun Shipwreck: Late Bronze-Age International Tradec. 1320–1300 BCE
- Standardised Binary Weights System of the Indusc. 2600 BCE
- Crisis of the Third Century and the Collapse of the Roman Denarius235–285 AD
- Domestication of cattle, sheep, goats and pigs in Southwest Asiac. 8500–7500 BCE
Further reading
The wider story
The Silk Roads: A New History of the World
Best-selling world history told through the trade routes that moved goods, faiths and ideas.
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