You might think that entrepreneurship was born in the times of the industrial revolution. It is true that the word entrepreneur was coined in the sixteenth century, but we see that the concept of entrepreneurship arose long before the birth of Christ. Sometime in second millennium BC, between the rivers of Euphrates and Tigris, in the Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian civilizations, enterprises were born.
The city of Babylon was in great need of entrepreneurs, because it was not rich in natural resources. The word for these Mesopotamian entrepreneurs, or merchants, was tamkarum. They wanted to create an export surplus of metalwork and textiles to obtain raw material as metal, stone and other that there was not much of in the south of Mesopotamia.
The ancient Assyrians and Babylonians were famous for their knowledge in astronomy, but they were hard-working entrepreneurs too.
Assyriologists have in recent years found what they call temples of enterprise. The temples of Babylon were owned by rich families. But these temples, and its’ big land, lacked workers and animals to make it really productive. The solution was to lease out the fields and workshops to farmers. In exchange for producing textile, beer or other products for export, these farmers were given a payment in either cash or goods.
The entrepreneurs were much respected in Mesopotamia. The term tamkarum often meant some form of connection to the temples. Most of them belonged to an upper class family. But just as today being an entrepreneur meant taking risks. Some succeeded, some did not.
It is not uncommon that economic historians cite the terms of commercial lending that existed in Babylon. People often wrote contracts and had a profit-sharing agreement. Here is where the Code of Hammurabi comes in to the picture. Paragraph 100 explains the procedure between a merchant and his trading agent:
“If a merchant gives silver to a trading agent for conducting business transactions and sends him off on a business trip…[and] if he should realize [a profit] where he went, he shall calculate the total interest, per transaction and time elapsed, on as much silver as he took, and he shall satisfy his merchant.”
Hammurabi’s laws were more than just the well-known “an eye for an eye”.
Later on, Greece and Rome took many of these concepts when building their own enterprises.
Further reading: The Invention of Enterprise: Entrepreneurship from Ancient Mesopotamia to Modern Times by David S. Landes, Joel Mokyr & William J. Baumol.