of the craft workshops originates from what seems to be a continuation of the royal
craft workshops in Ur from the previous century. This was the capital of the Ur III
dynasty and has yielded a fascinating archive documenting the activities of a craft
workshop producing luxury items. But we are dealing with different aspects of the
craft industry here. Whereas the Ur workshops handled precious and exotic materials,
the Isin craft archive documents the manufacture of practical utensils in the carpentry,
reed, leather and felter workshops. Probably, the manufacture of precious goods was
not as important in Isin as it was in Ur. Moreover, the craftsmen worked only part-
time for the Isin workshop, compared to full-time in Ur. The destinations of the products
show that the workshops were managed by the central household of Isin, probably the
palace. They include the palace (the most important consumer) and the royal family
(furniture and utensils, also for royal servants), temples (furniture for gods, furniture
and utensils for temple personnel), central storehouses (furniture and building mater-
ial), other workshops (for further completion) and administrative units (utensils, e.g.
oil jars and oil bags for the house of the oil pressers), illustrating the integration of
the economic sectors in the town. Some finished products were sent as official presents
to other countries (e.g. Elam, Dilmun, Mari) and to other towns of the kingdom of
Isin. A few texts from the archive of the Inanna temple in Nippur dating to this period
display prosopographical parallels with the Isin craft archive.
The offering lists of the Ninurta temple in Nippur (Sigrist 1984 ) cover the complete
nineteenth century BC. The reverses of these lists state to whom the food offerings
were redistributed after they had been placed in front of the gods, most often to
priests, temple functionaries and artisans responsible for the provision of the offerings,
such as brewers or bakers. These administrative texts form one of the earliest testimonies
of the institution of temple prebends in Babylonia. Other archives from a somewhat
later date illustrate other aspects of prebends. Therefore, the institution will be
discussed more thoroughly below. Together with some other administrative texts
from Nippur, the offering lists illustrate that the temples did not control their own
assets, but that the economic basis of the temples was administered centrally for the
whole city, something that can be observed in Ur as well and which was customary
probably since the Akkad or the Ur III period.
The written evidence from Ur offers the most diverse picture of the economic
proceedings of an Old Babylonian city (Van De Mieroop 1992 ). The preserved part
of the administration of the temple complex of Nanna and Ningal only really starts
around the time when Larsa gains supremacy over the town (ca. 1926 BC) and
disappears during the reign of Warad-Sîn ( 1834 – 1823 ). The temple must have been
the most influential economic factor of Ur during that period, owning huge herds
and large tracts of land and marshes. For the actual exploitation of these resources,
the temple engaged private individuals through lease and herding contracts, placing
the responsibility and the risk with the farmers and herdsmen and securing a regular
income. The herdsmen kept the institutional cattle or livestock assigned to them,
together with their own flock. Yearly, when the wool was shorn and delivered to the
temple, the heads of sheep and cattle were counted. Depending on the number of
ewes, the temple required a quota of newborn lambs. Any arrears or surpluses were
evened out with heads of their own flocks. The herdsmen also had to deliver dairy
products on a regular basis. Surplus dairy products could be sold or bartered locally.
— Anne Goddeeris —