Economy of Mesopotamia
- Had an early version of money
- Advanced for their era
- The Mesopotamians were very into record-keeping
- Kept track of a lot of buying and selling
- This helped to end disagreements.
- Mesopotamians used clay coins for key things
- These coins would tell the value of something
- Bartering was complicated because the system was biased
- After a while barley and silver were used to show the values of goods
- People could ask for 15 shekels of barley in exchange for a hen (shekels was a unit of measurement)
- Paying shekels would be a crime punishment
- From 2800 BC to 2500 BC silver was in coil or rings and was referred to as har
- Har could vary in size
- Impurity in silver caused problems and would cause people to be in debt
- Some people were so in debt that they had to become slaves
- The photo below shows Mesopotamian currency