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Insurance, or at least its concept, has a very ancient and somewhat complex origin, where examples of insurance exist in ancient China and Mesopotamia. Insurance has its origin in commerce as a way to protect shipments of trade against possible loss to the merchant. The idea of risk and loss of property or transactions during trade were worries for merchants, particularly in sea voyages, which were often very risky in early periods.<ref>For early development of insurance and how it related to trade, particularly sea-borne trade, see: Landes, David S, Joel Mokyr, and William J Baumol. 2010. ''The Invention of Enterprise: Entrepreneurship from Ancient Mesopotamia to Modern Times''. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, pg. 97.</ref> This led to the emergence of insurance as being an important part of trade that only later began to extend to other areas in the Enlightenment.