Hey, have you ever wondered if goods were the only thing the Mesopotamians traded? Well they  weren't! Mesopotamians did trade a lot of goods and food surplus, but they also exchanged ideas. While the goods and food were the Material part of trade, the exchange of culture, beliefs and ideas were the Non-Material side of the trade. This trade of ideas and cultures is called cultural diffusion. Cultural diffusion allowed the cities in Mesopotamia to know each other better, and that was why their religion, alphabet, and math were so alike.

Trading was a major job for Mesopotamian’s, back then, traveling to other city-states with other tribes. Inside the city, there were trading hotspots, like a street-fair. Today trading can be done by going to modern day trading hotspots or shopping centers. Like today, merchants could really get money trading things that only they had for things they needed. For example, they traded barley for wine with the Romans since the water from their rivers had bacteria. So ask yourself, what if ancient people all over the world hadn’t started to trade with other tribes. First consequence, we would be stuck in the dark ages forever. Second tribes would start to die from lack of protein, infection from contaminated water and starvation. Third consequence, we would have never reached a point beyond the first methods of farming. So my final point is, trading, between people is the engine of all countries; its what made the world what it is today. But comparing today to ancient Mesopotamian’s is impossible, the amount of goods that are traded every day are huge, but back then, trading was also huge but in the scale of the number of people trading. In conclusion, we depend on trade so that the countries , city-states and empires will prosper and survive.

The trade was the most important source of goods and ideas of Mesopotamia. And for the trade to be successful, they needed to reach out more places, so travel was needed. Opposite from us, Mesopotamian’s didn’t do much traveling for fun. The people who traveled the most were the merchants, who traded Mesopotamia’s great amount of food and ideas with other cities and empires.  This exchanging of goods and ideas is called cultural diffusion. But how did the merchants get to the other cities and empires? Well, they mostly traveled by boat because it was fast, and easy. But sometimes, when there was no water, the merchants had to use donkeys and mules. In 2000 B.C.E, the horse was introduced and following that, came the chariot. And all this work for transportation was all because of what? Where people in Mesopotamia great consumers? When we talk about money, Mesopotamians were much alike us today, they really valued wealth! And this demand was one of the great causes of why so much trade had to be done. While today we have money as our valued “wealth” the Mesopotamians had their traded goods as their riches.

Each city had their own specialties of what they traded. One of Mesopotamian specialties of trading was the metal. Nowadays, we use metal in daily life. We use them in desks, chairs, houses and many more. But in the Mesopotamia, they were only used in weapons and jewelry. And for the jewelry, not many people had them. These days, we have a variety of metal. But in Mesopotamia, there weren’t a lot of choices of metal. There was gold, copper, bronze and iron. The only thing from now that is the same from the Mesopotamia is how to forge metal. First, they would heat up the metal to a certain temperature that they can change the shape of the metal. Afterwards, they would just put them in some cold water so that the shape stays. In Mesopotamia, there were the first ones to forge the metal in different shapes. Although these we now have machines to forge metal, the basic kinds are the same.

The world view of nowadays Graded sixth grader is positive. It might be harsh for some time, but things will work out in the end. We think that we have a lot of choices in our lives and we have a bright future. There are times that we just have to act our age. There are no outside forces that effect us. But there are some differences between each sixth graders who call Brazil home. The details of how their future is going to be is dependant on if they plan on staying in Brazil or not. The world view of Mesopotamian economics was very positive. You could get things that you wanted. And also, by trading, they got more ideas and wealth that’s from over seas and land. For example, the metal work has come from the trade and their ideas from trading too! So the traveling for trade is a very important thing. or else we might not have a lot of skills that we have now.

Pictures: ''Trade Routes''  2007. www.bible-history.com/maps/maps/mesopotamia_trade.jpg April 26, 2008