Commodity Prices in Ancient Babylon 385 – 61 BC
Yesterday morning I was shown an interesting piece on the International Institute of Social History website about commodity pricing in late Achaemenid and Hellenistic Babylon, by R.J. van der Spek from Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. The prices were recorded alongside other data by astronomers in the employ of the king. There are six key commodities in the listing: these are barley, dates, mustard, cress, sesame and wool. The earliest commodity price in