Resumo de Economy And Agriculture From Ancient Times To The Modern Era

Economy and Agriculture from Ancient Times to the Modern EraMost residents of the Ancient Near East lived from hand to mouth, barely making ends meet with their small agricultural yields and part-time craft production. While the rich were exceptionally rich, the poor were exceptionally poor. There would have been no middle class and minimal opportunity for social mobility. Almost everyone would have engaged in some type of agriculture, and many small-scale farmers would have been saddled with tremendous debt. In fact, many laws set forth in the Old Testament are intended as remedies for the overwhelming debts that farmers living in biblical times must have accrued.AgricultureAgriculture varied from region to region in the Near East, depending on the types of soil and amounts of precipitation. In southern Mesopotamia, extensive irrigation projects were necessary to support agriculture. Local people constructed dams and canals from the Euphrates (and less frequently the Tigris) to water their fields. This irrigation process heavily salinated the land, eventually making it useless. Crops that could be planted had to be resistant to salt, making barley the most common crop in Mesopotamia.In Israel, farming was much easier and much more varied. Since annual rainfall levels were sufficient for non-irrigation farming, much less organization was required. The richness of the land allowed for a huge variety of crops: cereals, fruits, and vegetables of all sorts were produced here. From an ancient perspective, and compared with the relative aridity of the rest of the Near East, this truly was a land flowing with milk and honey.Two of the major crops in the Near East were grapes and olives. While some of the yield would have been eaten raw, most of these crops would have been transformed into wine and olive oil. Since the production of wine and olive oil involved the use of expensive equipment, it is likely that neighborhoods shared these tools and communally produced these goods. Wine would have been very sweet, and while the grapes would have been fermented, the alcohol content would have been quite low. Wine was the major drink, other than water, and a major source of income for some farmers. Olive oil was used in food preparation and as lamp fuel. Its use as fuel made it a necessary commodity for all people and it was probably a major expense for most families.PastoralismThe other major subsistence strategy in the Near East was animal husbandry or pastoralism, an industry still apparent in modern settings. The hills of Israel provide ample pasture land for large flocks of sheep and goats, which would have been primarily utilized as sources of wool and milk (and only occasionally as a source of meat). Goat?s milk was used extensively, usually processed into a form of yoghurt, but sometimes consumed directly as milk or made into cheese. Pastoralists would only spend a small portion of the year with their community. For the rest of the time, they would herd their flocks to various pastures dotted around the countryside. Modern-day Bedouin still practice pastoralism much in the same way as their ancestors did in antiquity. They spend the wetter months of the year in the desert fringes with their flocks. As the vegetation is consumed by the grazing animals and scorched by the changing seasons, these nomadic people move their flocks into the less extreme environments, making the most of any available resources.Stone, Mineral, and Other ResourcesMesopotamia was almost completely bereft of resources in ancient times. The land lacked stone, wood, and mineral resources, forcing the Mesopotamians to look to other parts of the Near East?mostly Persia and Anatolia?to gain these resources. Both these regions had rich deposits of stone, and ancient texts detail the conveyance of large amounts of stone across the Zagros Mountains into Mesopotamia proper.One of the most important industries in the Near East was metallurgy. It was so prominent, in fact, that archaeologists use types of metals as the basis for their understanding of the chronology of the region (i.e., Copper Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age). Metals were crafted both as utilitarian goods (tools, weapons) and as luxury items (jewelry, ceremonial figurines). Manufacturing these materials required highly specialized knowledge, expert equipment, and a great expense in initial financing. Not only would metal smiths have to purchase expensive metals, it was also costly to make the furnaces hot enough to melt metal. Animal dung was used to a certain extent, but to make the kiln really hot, metal smiths had to use large amounts of wood.Syro?Palestine was also wealthy in mineral resources, and copper was particularly prominent in the southern regions. Starting around 3000 b.c.e., Egyptian mining expeditions in what would later become southern Israel are evident. The Old Testament hints that Solomon may also have exploited the copper resources in this region.Due to the lack of forests in Mesopotamia and Egypt, the cedars of Lebanon were highly regarded. Foresters in what are now Syria and Lebanon traded timber and tree products for international goods. Records survive of Egyptian maritime expeditions to the region to gain much-needed wood.

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