ABSTRACT.This contribution evaluates the importance of riverine and maritime navigation to the peoples of Southern Mesopotamia in the 3rd millennium BC. It shows that harbours, boats and mariners feature prominently in the surviving texts and artefacts. It also demonstrates that maritime trade was essential to the economies of the cities along the two major rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris, which had close commercial ties with coastal communities around the Arabian Gulf, especially in the area of Bahrain and Oman, and the Indus Valley.

RÉSUMÉ.En s'appuyant notamment sur la représentation considérable des ports, bateaux et marins dans les artefacts et textes qui nous sont parvenus, cette contribution analyse l'importance de la navigation maritime et fluviale pour les peuples de la Basse-Mésopotamie au IIIème millénaire avant notre ère. Le rôle essentiel du commerce maritime pour l'économie des villes situées sur les bords des deux fleuves principaux – le Tigre et l'Euphrate – y est également démontré ainsi que les liens commerciaux qui se sont tissés avec les communautés côtières du golfe Persique, en particulier dans les régions du Bahreïn, d'Oman et de la vallée de l'Indus.

INTRODUCTION

Ancient Mesopotamia (from Greek ‘between rivers’), a region which nowadays comprises principally Iraq and north-eastern Syria, was shaped by the presence of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. In addition, the southern alluvial plain which extended from Baghdad to the Arabian Gulf was dramatically influenced by an extended network of canals and by the proximity of the sea. Southern Mesopotamia is rightly characterized as the cradle of urban culture, as a land of cities. But most cities lie on a watercourse or even near the seashore, so that harbours, or at least mooring installations, were a structural part of the cities. Although the canal network developed for irrigation purposes, navigable canals and rivers were the principal routes for an intensive traffic of goods and people. Furthermore, foreign goods from the Arabian Gulf region could reach Mesopotamia only through maritime trade.