The River-Road

The Egyptians lived on the Nile River. The Assyrians and the Babylonians lived on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in Mesopotamia. Why do you think that ancient people wanted to live near rivers?

People who lived near rivers had plenty of water to drink and to use on their crops.

How will you get from Ur to Assyria? Remember, you don’t have a car or truck. If you’re going to go all the way to Assyria, you’ll have to use a cart pulled by cows. You can’t walk, because the wheat is too heavy to carry. And your cart has wheels made out of wood, because rubber hasn’t been invented yet.

How long do you think the wheels last? Will you have to stop and fix them, between Ur and Assur? How fast do cows walk? How long do you think it will take you to walk at the pace of a cow all the way to Assyria? Let’s think about the ground in Mesopotamia for a minute. In this area, the ground is either sandy or rocky. Remember—there are no bulldozers and paving machines to make nice smooth roads. So, part of the way to Assyria, you’ll have to walk on sand.

What’s difficult about walking on sand? Think about being at the beach. Do your feet sink into the sand? What if you were pulling a very heavy cart with wooden wheels? Would the wheels sink into the sand? Let’s also think about rocky ground.

Can you think of another way to get from Ur to Assur? Think about this: You could put all your wheat on a boat. Then you could sail from Ur on the Euphrates River down to the Persian Gulf. And then you could sail back up the Tigris River. By sailing in your boat, you could get there in less time—and with a lot less work.

Cities grew up on rivers because it was easy to ship food, metals, wood, and other goods up and down the water. It was much easier to go by water than to drag heavy loads over land! The cities in Mesopotamia used the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers to trade with each other.

But they didn’t just trade with each other. They also traded with countries to the east. And one of the countries they traded with was India. The people of India also used a river as a road. Their river was called the Indus, and the land around the Indus River was called the Indus Valley. The people of India settled in this valley because they could drink the river’s water, fish in it, and use it to water their fields. They also sailed up and down the Indus River, trading with each other.

Eventually, the people of India sailed out into the Arabian Sea. The Arabian Sea was the largest body of water they had ever seen! They must have thought that they were in a sea that had no shores and would never end. But they were brave; they kept exploring. Soon they learned that they could sail up to the cities of Mesopotamia and trade with them.

If the people of India had tried to go across the land to Mesopotamia, they would have had to cross a mountain range. But by boat, the trip wasn’t difficult at all. So the people of India—like the Mesopotamians—built large cities near the Indus River, and made money by trading with other cities. Today we call their civilization the Harappan civilization. It was strongest between 2000 and 1750 BC/BCE.