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The Economic Empire of the Mesopotamian Gods

Before money, before markets, before governments — the gods ran the economy. And for two thousand years, the temples of Mesopotamia controlled the wealth, labor, credit, and power of the ancient world. This documentary reveals the world’s first true financial system: an economy built not by merchants or monarchs, but by priests. Long before modern banking or taxation, the temples of Sumer, Akkad, Babylon, and Assyria acted as landlords, lenders, employers, accountants, storage vaults, regulators, and political power centers. This episode exposes how early civilizations fused religion with economics — and how their temple-based financial system still shapes the foundations of today’s states, banks, and global financial structures. Key Facts & Insights • Mesopotamia (3000–500 BCE) created the first large-scale economic institutions in human history. • Temples owned vast tracts of land and collected rent in grain, livestock, and labor, functioning as early tax systems. • Temple workshops employed thousands of workers, whose wages were paid in standardized rations of grain, beer, and oil. • Early writing (cuneiform) was invented to record temple accounts, debts, and contracts, not myths. • Temples acted as banks, issuing loans and storing surplus grain and silver in secure warehouses. • Kings later absorbed temple wealth, creating the first state-controlled economies, leading to cycles of debt crises and royal debt cancellations. • Many modern financial institutions — bureaucracy, taxation, credit, reserves — originated directly from the Mesopotamian temple system. • The roots of economic power, financial legitimacy, and monetary trust stretch back to the rituals and record-keepers of ancient Sumer. #FinancialHistory #EconomicHistory #Mesopotamia #Sumerians #TheFinancialHistorian #financialhistorian If this gave you a new perspective, hit subscribe. History has the answers—and I’ll show you where to look.