Note 12 — Chapter XII · How Copper-culture reached China

Babylonia, the Asiatic granary of the ancient world, lay across the trade routes. Both its situation and its agricultural resources gave it great commercial importance. It had abundant supplies of surplus food to stimulate trade, and its industrial activity created a demand for materials that could not be obtained in the rich alluvial plain. “Over the Persian Gulf”, says Professor Goodspeed,12 “teak-wood, found in Eridu (the seaside “cradle” of Sumerian culture), was brought from India. Cotton also made its way from the same source to the southern cities. Over Arabia, by way of Ur, which stood at the foot of a natural opening from the desert … were led the caravans laden with stone, spices, copper, and gold13 from Sinai, Yemen, and Egypt. Door-sockets of Sinaitic stone found at Nippur attest this traffic.” Cedar wood was imported from the Syrian mountains “for the adornment of palaces and temples. From the east, down the pass of Holwan, came the marble and precious metal of the mountains. Much of this raw material was worked over by Babylonian artisans and shipped back to less-favoured lands, along with the grain, dates, and fish, the rugs and cloths of native production. All this traffic was in the hands of Babylonian traders, who fearlessly ventured into the borders of distant countries, and must have carried with them thither the knowledge of the civilization and wealth of their own home, for only thus can the widespread influence of Babylonian culture in the earliest periods be explained.”