![\"Cecile](\"https:\/\/ychef.files.bbci.co.uk\/1600x900\/p093p0vs.webp\" "\\"Cecile")
<\/picture><\/div>\n<\/div>\nAround 1870BC, in the city of Assur in northern Iraq, a woman called Ahaha uncovered a case of financial fraud.<\/p>\n
Ahaha had invested in long-distance trade between Assur and the city of Kanesh in Turkey. She and other investors had pooled silver to finance a donkey caravan delivering tin and textiles to Kanesh, where the goods would be exchanged for more silver, generating a tidy profit. But Ahaha\u2019s share of the profits seemed to have gone missing \u2013 possibly embezzled by one of her own brothers, Buzazu. So, she grabbed a reed stylus and clay tablet and scribbled a letter to another brother, Assur-mutappil, pleading for help:<\/p>\n
\u201cI have nothing else apart from these funds,\u201d she wrote in cuneiform script<\/a>. \u201cTake care to act so that I will not be ruined!\u201d She instructed Assur-mutappil to recover her silver and update her quickly. \u201cLet a detailed letter from you come to me by the very next caravan, saying if they do pay the silver,\u201d she wrote in another tablet. \u201cNow is the time to do me a favour and to save me from financial stress!\u201d<\/p>\n Ahaha\u2019s letters are among 23,000 clay tablets excavated over the past decades from the ruins of merchants\u2019 homes in Kanesh. They belonged to Assyrian expats who had settled in Kanesh and kept up a lively correspondence with their families back in Assur, which lay six weeks away by donkey caravan. A new book gives unprecedented insight into a remarkable group within this community: women who seized new opportunities offered by social and economic change, and took on roles more typically filled by men at the time. They became the first-known businesswomen, female bankers and female investors in the history of humanity.<\/p>\n \u2018Strong and independent\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n The bulk of the letters, contracts and court rulings found in Kanesh date from around 1900-1850 BC, a period when the Assyrians\u2019 trading network was flourishing, bringing prosperity to the region and giving rise to many innovations. The Assyrians invented certain forms of investment and were also among the first men and women to write their own letters, rather than dictating them to professional scribes. It\u2019s thanks to these letters that we can hear a chorus of vibrant female voices telling us that even in the distant past, commerce and innovation were not the exclusive domains of men.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The letters, though tiny, contained a wealth of insight into this ancient world of commerce (Credit: Cecile Michel, Archaeological Mission of K\u00fcltepe)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n While their husbands were on the road, or striking deals in some faraway trading settlement, these women looked after their businesses back home. But they also accumulated and managed their own wealth, and gradually gained more power in their personal lives.<\/p>\n \u201cThese women were really strong and independent, because they were alone, they were the head of the household while the husband was away,\u201d says C\u00e9cile Michel, a senior researcher\u00a0at the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France, and author of the book, titled Women of Assur and Kanesh. Through more than 300 letters and other documents, the book tells a strikingly detailed and colourful story of the women\u2019s struggles and triumphs. Though brimming with drama and adventure, the clay letters themselves are tiny, about the size of the palm of a hand.<\/p>\n The businesswomen\u2019s story is tied to that of the Assyrian merchant community as a whole. In their heyday, the Assyrians were among the most successful and well-connected traders of the Near East. Their caravans of up to 300 donkeys criss-crossed mountains and uninhabited plains, carrying raw materials, luxury goods and, of course, clay letters.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was one leg of a huge international network, which started somewhere in Central Asia, with lapis-lazuli from Afghanistan, carnelian from Pakistan, and the tin may have come from Iran or further to the east,\u201d says Jan Gerrit Dercksen, an Assyriologist at Leiden University in the Netherlands, who has also worked on the Kanesh tablets. Foreign traders brought these goods to the gates of Assur, along with textiles from Babylonia in southern Iraq. They were sold to the Assyrians, who packed them onto caravans bound for Kanesh and other towns in the Anatolian region in Turkey, where they were sold for gold and silver.<\/p>\n Complex financial instruments facilitated this trade, such as the \u201cnaruqqum\u201d, which literally means \u201cbag\u201d. It refers to a joint-stock company in which Assyrian investors pooled their silver to fund merchant-led caravans over many years. The merchants also developed a lively business jargon. \u201cThe tablet is dead\u201d meant that a debt had been paid and the clay-tablet contract recording it was therefore cancelled. \u201cHungry silver\u201d referred to silver that was not being invested, idly sitting around instead of generating a profit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Assyrian women contributed to this bustling commercial network by producing textiles for export, issuing loans to merchants, buying and selling houses, and investing in naruqqum schemes. Their skills as weavers allowed them to earn their own silver. They kept a keen eye on foreign fashions and market trends to secure the best prices, as well as on taxes and other costs that dented their profits.<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/ychef.files.bbci.co.uk\/1024x1280\/p093p28f.webp\" "\\"The")
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They really are accountants; they know perfectly well what they should get back in exchange for their textiles \u2013 C\u00e9cile Michel<\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/ychef.files.bbci.co.uk\/1600x900\/p093p2r8.webp\" "\\"The")
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