David Abulafia > Quotes

“It was, after all, much less work to go beachcombing than to rely on catching deer, elk and aurochs, which might escape the hunter for days at a time, a change ‘away from the high-risk, high-yield, high-energy expenditure strategy of game hunting to a low-risk, moderate-yield, low-energy expenditure strategy’, in the concise words of Barry Cunliffe.16 One could go further: the dependence of these folk on the produce of the sea must have affected their system of values, which would place less emphasis on the martial skills associated with hunting (casting spears, shooting arrows, and so on) and more on the nautical skills needed to master even inshore waters.”
― David Abulafia, The Boundless Sea: A Human History of the Oceans

“Some Ur merchants did so as agents of a temple; but, increasingly, others worked on their own.27 Loans at interest, business partnerships, trading contracts assigning risk, and other indications of a commercial economy with many of the attributes of mercantile capitalism abound, for the first capitalists on record were Sumerian merchants long ago in the third millennium bc: Lu-Mešlamtaë and Nigsisanabsa have borrowed from Ur-Nimmar 2 minas of silver, 5 kur of sesame oil, 30 garments, for an expedition to Dilmun”
― David Abulafia, The Boundless Sea: A Human History of the Oceans