Agents were frequently employed in the sale or letting of estates.
The cities were busy centres of trade.

Commercial intercourse was carried on with all parts of the known world.

Wheat was exported in large quantities, as well as dates and date-wine.

The staple of Babylonian industry, however, was the manufacture of cloths and carpets.
Vast flocks of sheep were kept on the western bank of the Euphrates, and placed under the charge of Bedawin from Arabia.

Their wool was made into curtains and rugs, and dyed or embroidered fabrics of various kinds.
Even Belshazzar, the heir-apparent of Nabonidos, did not disdain to be a wool-merchant, and we find him lending twenty manehs, the proceeds of the sale of some of it, and taking as security for the repayment of the debt certain house-property in Babylon.