eventually resulted in indebtedness and loss of control over their agricultural holdings
(Renger 1995 b, 304 – 308 ). This could mean that more or less all arable land and
therefore the entire agricultural production came under institutional control. As a
consequence the dominant mode of production was determined by large urban
institutional households (oikoi). Once this stage was reached there remained little
room for societal and economic structures outside the palace.
Oikoseconomy during the fourth and third millenniaThe oikoseconomy as an ideal-typical concept of economic organization was first
described by Karl Rodbertus, later by Karl Bücher and Max Weber. Eventually the
oikosconcept was applied to ancient Mesopotamia by Gelb ( 1979 ) and most succinctly
by Grégoire ( 1981 ; 1992 ). Oppenheim ( 1977 : 95 ) speaks of temple and palace as the
‘great organisations’ which control most of the means of production, i.e. the arable
land. Theoikoseconomy was the dominant economic organization in Mesopotamia
during the later part of the fourth and the third millennia. It has two major charac-
teristics. First, the patrimonial household (oikos) of the ruler is identical in institutional
as well as in spatial terms with the ‘state’. Integrated into it is more or less the entire
population which provides the necessary labour needed for the reproduction of the
state and its institutions. Second, these self-sufficient households produce everything
necessary, except for a few strategic needs such as metal or prestige goods that must
be obtained from the outside. Characteristic for theoikoseconomy is the redistributive
mode of production by which the results of collective labour in agricultural and non-
agricultural activities are appropriated by a central authority, i.e. the ruler, and
subsequently redistributed among the producers, i.e. the entire populace of the state
- we thus speak of a redistributive oikoseconomy.
Redistribution has the form of daily or monthly rations in kind, supplemented for
certain groups of the labour force and the administrative personnel by the assignment
of small plots of fields. Together with rations, they assure the subsistence needs of a
person or family. In this type of redistributive economy, individual property on arable
land does not play any decisive economic role.
During the earlier parts of the third millennium BC, the household (oikos) of the
ruler of small territorial entities is, in organizational and functional terms, less complex
or differentiated than during the Third Dynasty of Ur. The household of the ruler
of the Ur III state now encompasses the entire realm and the patrimonial household
of the ruler is characterized by five different types of oikoi(Grégoire 1992 : 323 f.)
They are: - Agricultural domains of 50 to 200 hectares each (Renger 1995 b, 285 ) managed
by the temples but also by palace-dependent households. The temple domains
were administered by a substantial managerial personnel, usually organized in
three tiers. - Workshops e.g. for textile production, grain processing, or for producing crafted
goods, all organized as ergasteria (workhouses) managed by the palace, sometimes
employing 1 , 000 or more male and female workers. - Distribution households.
- Households supporting the administrative activities of the state.^3
— Johannes Renger —