Why Did Assyria Become a Commercial Empire? | Joo Won-joon, Senior Researcher at Hanim Bible Research Institute

Summary

This 3PRO TV 'Ancient' episode features Dr. Joo Won-joon of the Hanim Bible Research Institute lecturing on ancient Near Eastern history and the decipherment of cuneiform in the early second millennium BCE. The talk explains how Assyria became the world's first commercial empire through its trade-chokepoint geography and karum merchant colonies, and how Hammurabi unified Babylon, privatized the temple economy, and institutionalized periodic debt cancellation. The episode contains no investment theses, market commentary, or tradable ideas.

• 3PRO TV's 'Ancient' episode is a history lecture, not an investment program.
• Dr. Joo Won-joon explains how Egyptian and cuneiform scripts were deciphered from multilingual inscriptions such as the Rosetta Stone and the Behistun inscription.
• He describes how Mesopotamian civilization spread from the Sumerian south northward and then toward Syria-Palestine in the early 2nd millennium BCE.
• Assyria, positioned at a Tigris crossing and crossroads, became the world's first commercial empire through trade, tolls, warehouses, credit, and karum colonies in Anatolia.
• Roughly 20,000 surviving merchant letters show that women ran local trading posts and mixed business and personal matters.
• Hammurabi unified Babylon, created the Old Babylonian kingdom, privatized temple land through merchant contracts, and periodically canceled debts.
• The episode closes by noting that the biblical jubilee has a historical root in Hammurabi's debt-cancellation practice.
• No securities, assets, indices, or market trades were discussed.