BABYLONIANS

THE ANCIENT LOGISTICS OF BABYLON

When we look at humankind's track record for innovation, the Babylonians keep showing up as having created ingenious solutions to complex problems.

Their society remains fascinating because they were coming up with advanced and creative answers much as we do today, only they did it 4,000 years ago, without the help of modern technology. 

The Babylonians were impactful to humankind's history because they possessed a unique quality; anticipation. They prepared for adversity and, in doing so, found ways to transform complex problems into profitable solutions.

If you look at where Babylon was located, in what is now Iraq, it seems inconceivable that anyone could have lived in that barren wasteland, with scorching heat and an unforgiving rocky desert that stretches as far as the eye can see. This is not arable land, and yet, this entire region is known as the Fertile Crescent. That's because every spring, and again in Autumn, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers inundate the land and cover it in fertile silt.

There are other regions in the world that enjoy a similar springtime phenomenon; Egypt and the Nile, the Ganges in India and the Mekong River in Vietnam, yet Babylon managed to capitalize on it thousands of years before anyone else did,  by developing the world's first logistics network.

As anyone growing up around agriculture knows, farming is messy, with muddy roads leading to essential facilities  around the farm. In Babylon, the struggle was worse, with no real roads. All of that rich silty soil that came from the river could not be reached, planted, or harvested on a commercial scale, that is, until the Babylonians invented the paved …