Explanation:
The Sumerians were well-traveled trade merchants.
A detail from the so called Standard of Ur, side B. This panel shows a banquet, perhaps after a victory and men driving cattle and sheep. (Credit: Werner Forman/Universal Images Group/Getty Images)
Since their homeland was largely devoid of timber, stone and minerals, the Sumerians were forced to create one of history’s earliest trade networks over both land and sea. Their most important commercial partner may have been the island of Dilmun (present day Bahrain), which held a monopoly on the copper trade, but their merchants also undertook months-long journeys to Anatolia and Lebanon to gather cedar wood and to Oman and the Indus Valley for gold and gemstones. The Sumerians were particularly fond of lapis lazuli—a blue-colored precious stone used in art and jewelry—and there is evidence that they may have roamed as far as Afghanistan to get it. Historians have also suggested that Sumerian references to two ancient trading lands known as “Magan” and “Meluhha” may refer to Egypt and Ethiopia.
