From Barter System to Market. Before the rise of cities, individual households in Mesopotamia produced most of what they consumed. Within small villages and settlements, one household could trade or barter its goods with other households. In a simple barter transaction, participants exchange a product or service for a different product or service on terms both parties consider fair and equitable; that is, the good or service received is deemed worth the good or service given up. Over time, as individuals and individual households began increasingly to specialize in one of an everwider variety of goods and services, the network of exchange grew more complex. The brewer, for example, might seek to exchange his beer with a potter for storage jars; the potter, in turn, might seek to trade his wares for the services of the barber, the...