1.4 Contracts
Over a thousand private contracts have now been published. More
than half are loan documents, followed by sale—of houses, orchards,
slaves, and animals. There are no records of the sale of arable land,
but the lease of fields is well attested, as well as the hire of persons
and animals. The only other contract represented in any quantity is
suretyship. Some of these documents, especially loan documents,
come from institutional archives such as the temples, but many come
from private business archives, a few of which have been identified,
such as those of the herdsman SI.A-a,^6 the merchant Turam-ili,^7 and
the merchant Ur-Nusku.^81.5 Administrative Records
Strictly legal records represent a small proportion of the huge mass
of documentation produced by a highly bureaucratized administra-
tion. More than forty thousand documents from this period have
been published. Over ten thousand documents, mostly accounts of
deliveries and transfers of animals, have been discovered at the site
of Drehem, the ancient administrative center of Puzri“-Dagan.^9
Cumulatively, they provide us with a wealth of information about
the administration of the State and the relationship between the royal
administration and the provincial governments. Sealed administra-
tive tablets may be regarded as legal documents inasmuch as the
official sealing a tablet thereby renders himself responsible for its
veracity and the proper execution of procedures recorded in it.- C A L
2.1 The Imperial Structure
This period is also referred to as the Third Dynasty of Ur (“Ur III”),
a régime which is usually thought of as an empire on the Sargonic
model of some two centuries earlier. The term empire, however,(^6) Steinkeller, Sale.. ., 305–7. They are mostly in Akkadian and come from a
northern site near Babylon; see Frayne, “On the Home.. .”
(^7) Van de Mierop, “Tûram-Ilî...”
(^8) Neumann, “Zur privaten Geschäftstätigkeit.. .,” 169–73.
(^9) Sigrist, Drehem, 12–21.
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