Proceedings of ASBBS Volume 16 Number 1 MARKETING IN THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION: THE “RIVERINE” TRIANGLE VS. THE FERTILE CRESCENT Z. S. Demirdjian Department of Marketing California State University, Long Beach 1250 Bellflower Boulevard Long Beach, California 90840 [email protected] Tel. (562) 985-4764 Fax. (562) 985-1588 ABSTRACT In researching the origins of marketing, one’s journey usually ends up in Mesopotamia. Upon closer examination one runs into an inconsistency about the location of the cradle of civilization. The confusion encountered in the literature of Mesopotamia stems from a recurring misconception: the use of the Fertile Crescent as a synonymous phrase with that of the cradle of civilization. The contention in this paper is made that the cradle of civilization lies in the Riverine Triangle formed by the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers. In this region four nations are located (i.e., Armenia, Assyria, Babylonia, and Sumeria), while in the Fertile Crescent several other additional nations are included such as Syria, Phoenicia, Palestine, and sometimes Egypt. As such, this confuses the issue of determining the place of the beginnings of marketing at the dawn of recorded history. By exploring historical and archeological evidence gathered so far and by verifying the original works of the scholars involved, the purpose in this paper is to determine whether to take a micro view of the Riverine Triangle or the macro perspective of the Fertile Crescent when delineating the location of the cradle of civilization, hence the birthplace of marketing. INTRODUCTION The quest for the discovery of the origins of marketing at the beginning of recorded history leads the “Marketing Indiana Johns” to Mesopotamia. Most scholars place the cradle of civilization between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers. The Riverine Triangle thus formed by the two rivers was home for four nations which lived there in a vertical line from the Armenian plateau to the Persian Gulf. Armenia, Assyria, Babylonia, and Sumeria prospered by the gift of the two rivers which flew through their territories and yielded multiple harvests of agricultural commodities mainly by irrigating their fields as is shown in Map 1. About the turn of the century, the American anthropologist James Henry Breasted coined a phrase in his book Ancient Times published in 1916 by stating that there was a belt of verdant, cultivable land from south of Sumeria all the way to the foothills of Armenia, west to Syria, south to Phoenicia, and further south to Palestine. He referred to this so-called verdant ribbon of land the “Fertile Crescent” based ASBBS Annual Conference: Las Vegas February 2009
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