Researchers investigating how the first writing arose identified the motifs on preliterate "cylinder seals" used in the trade of agricultural products and textiles.

Foreign trade was necessary to obtain raw materials ... and also slaves captured from the mountains surrounding Mesopotamia. (A typical word for slave was “mountain girl.”) ...

India’s coastline, stretching over 7,500 kilometers, has been a hub of maritime trade for millennia. Long before European ...

In East Africa a slave trade was well established before the ... soldiers in the Omani army and workers on the salt pans of Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). Many people were domestic slaves, working ...