Page 74 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

cuneirorm tablets, seems to add weight to the argument that
sea trading at this time was large-scale, organized, and frequent,
with regular sea routes over distances which, even by our own

standards, are of impressive length.
As with the inland settlements, so, too, of the seaward trade

in the Far East, Africa, and America we know practically noth­
ing. But we can no longer assume that lack of evidence means
that there was no sea trade along the coasts of India, Malaya,
and the Chinas, to Africa and even to America. Written evidence

supported by archaeology confirms such trade in the Red Sea,
the Persian Gulf, and the Indian Ocean, and archaeology alone

is sufficient to demonstrate it throughout the Mediterranean and
the northeast Atlantic. But these are the areas where archaeolo­
gists have had a hundred years and more to look for evidence. It

would be surprising if comparable data were not to be found in
regions where they have not yet looked. Be that as it may, we
must not anticipate the evidence—providing only that it be

clearly understood that the account which follows of the mer­
chant adventurers of 2000 b.c. does not imply that none were to
be found outside the areas described.

With a following wind—and the wind blows almost always

from the north in the Persian Gulf—it was a three-day run from
Ur to Dihnun. Despite the dangers of the voyage (squalls are sud­
den and pirates not unknown), the merchant captains must
have heaved a sigh of relief when their vessels cast off and started

the long drift down the Euphrates. For the moment they could
forget the financial juggling needed to get the voyage started at

all with a full cargo. Deposited at the Ishtar temple ashore are
the documents recording the profit-sharing partnerships and the
direct loans against interest which alone made the voyages pos­

sible. At least the complication of money has not yet been in­
vented, and the clay tablets are straightforward enough: “In ex­

change for thus-and-thus many bales of woolen piece goods the
partners undertake, on the return of their ship from Dilmun, to
pay such-and-such a weight of copper in ingots of good quality.
No responsibility is assumed for loss in transit.” No responsibility,

indeed! The captains, who belong to the guild of Dilmun-farers