The alluvial plains in Mesopotamia are perfectly suitable for high food production. The economy was based on agriculture, predominantly the cultivation of barley. Barley was used as means of payment for wages in kind and dayly rations. Heards of sheep and goats graze the meadows outside the season.
Cattle pasture when sufficient water is available.
Wool production was large and converted to an assortment of textile fabrics. Apart from cereals the inhabitants of Mesopotamia themselves had little to offer. Cereals were indeed exported but was too bulky for donkey transport over long distances. Imported material from elsewhere were again exported. It was exported to Anatolia, a major center of metal industry, where in extensive forests wood was abundantly available to fuel the furnaces.