In 1892 the French archaeologist Henri Pognon made a historic discovery a few dozen miles northeast of Baghdad: a massive tell that held the ruins of the ancient city-state Eshnunna.

Though it was not excavated until decades later by another archaeological team led by Dutch Egyptologist Henri Frankfort, the tell was one of the great finds of the century, revealing secrets of a Mesopotamian city that had been hidden for millennia.

Among the secrets discovered on cuneiform tablets was that Eshnunna used price controls, a discovery notable in that it appears to be the oldest historical record of humans fixing prices. (I've attempted to verify this fact with economic historians, and will let you know if I get a response.)