Susanne Paulus

“Banking with Barley” is the first comprehensive study of the Babylonian economy during the Late Bronze Age (1400–1150 BCE). Drawing on hundreds of largely untranslated cuneiform tablets, the book reconstructs how taxes, wages, loans, and investments were managed in a world without coins or banks. It reveals how barley, a bulky food staple, also functioned as capital: anyone with a surplus could extend credit, creating durable networks that linked buyers, sellers, and creditors, stabilized society, and at times generated conflict. Through the translation and historical analysis of key texts, the project rethinks money, debt, and inequality in the ancient world while making Babylonian archives accessible to scholars across the humanities.