THE TRADE RELATIONS

OF BABYLONIA AND THE QUESTION OF RELATIONS WITH EGYPT IN THE OLD

BABYLONIAN PERIOD*

BY

W. F. LEEMANS (Arnhem)

It is generally accepted that the second millennium B.C. brought to Babylonia a period of prosperity and cultural climax, culminating in the reign of king Hammurapi of Babylon. About the same time the Middle kingdom flourished in Egypt. It is necessary to give some definitions before we come to the subject of this article: Babylonia will be used as a geographic notion, southern Mesopotamia, or Mesopotamia approximately south of Baghdad. After the fall of the third dynasty of Ur, several cities fought for the supremacy in this region. First the dynasty of Isin was most successful, after it the dynasty of Larsa and finally Hammurapi, king of Babylon, con- quered the whole territory (about 1760 B.C.), so that, in a narrower sense, only from this time could the territory be referred to as Baby- lonia. Hammurapi's successor Samsuiluna lost the extreme south of Mesopotamia about 20 years later, but his dynasty continued to maintain itself in the region of Babylon for more than a century. The whole period of the dynasties of Isin, Larsa and Babylon is referred to here as the Old Babylonian period. It is well known that no indications are found of any political relations between Babylonia and Egypt in this period, either of a friendly or of a hostile nature. Egypt and its kings do not figure in the texts from Babylonia, and conversely Babylonia and its kings do not occur in the texts from Egypt. This does not mean that no trade relations existed between the two 22 countries in this period. Such relations might become apparent through finds of Egyptian objects in Babylonia or of Babylonian objects in Egypt, or from texts. Occasional finds of objects, however, are no proof of regular trade relations. One single find might be an object sent as a gift or might be the result of similar casual circumstances, and only from more frequent finds can trade relations be inferred. Even then these finds are not proof of direct trade; the objects may have come into the country by transit trade. Evidence of direct trade can only be provided by texts. Finds of Egyptian objects of the period under discussion have not been made in Babylonia, as far as is known to me. Babylonian objects of this period have been found in Egypt in the treasure of Tod only, probably concealed in the time of Pharao Amenemhet II. It is qu.estio- nable whether it is legitimate to draw any conclusions on trade relations from this find, as we are concerned with one single find only and it is unknown how this treasure was brought together. The Babylonian seal-cylinders in it, all of lapis lazuli, are of very different types-Old Akkadian, Ur III, Isin-Larsa period, Cappadocian-and it is not inconceivable that this part of the treasure was gathered on the east coast of the Mediterranean, where an Old Babylonian seal cylinder has been found at Byblos. Valuable objects such as these often formed part of a gift, in this case perhaps by a friendly prince on the Med- iterranean coast. One may compare, for example, the gifts of Cretan objects by the king of Mari to the kings of Razama and Babylon 1). Consequently, no trade relations between Egypt and Babylonia can be deduced from the archaeological data, not even indirect ones. The lack of more finds besides the single treasure of Tod gives rather an indication that no regular trade relations, direct or indirect, existed between the two countries. It is of interest for the discussion of the question posed in the title to summarize some results of an investigation which I have made on the information yielded by the texts with regard to the foreign trade