prominently in written sources. At one point, the landed property of the gods Baba
and Ningirsu attained incredible proportions: sixty square kilometres for Baba alone.^8
Another category of the rulers’ revenue, the extent of which is difficult to specify,
were the ‘public works’, or corvée labour. The sovereigns of Lagash seemed to have
felt entitled to impose this on their own subjects,^9 and the Shuruppak texts refer to
mustering a large labour- or military force from the subservient population.^10
Revenues from occasional and irregular sources, such as the greeting gifts by newly
appointed officials, came in handy as a fourth kind of income.^11 We do possess lists
of such ‘gifts’.^12 When Lugalanda’s consort Barnamtara gave birth to a daughter, for
instance, she received gifts including livestock and beer.^13
Finally, let us also list the fifth kind of resources available to kings, which were
the result of their own ‘entrepreneurial’ activities, mainly the outcome of publicly
sponsored works such as canal building or the reclamation of waste land. Urnanshe
of Lagash, for example, initiated the digging of an irrigation channel. The fields and
gardens thus fertilized, however, did not belong to the sovereign but to the goddess
Baba.^14 This case shows that in carrying out projects of common good, the sovereigns
of Early Dynastic Sumer were acting as public figures, putting the results of their
managerial skills at the disposal of the community which they directed. It goes
without saying that in many cases, the princes of early Sumerian cities drew profit
from leasing their own lands.^15
Figure 17. 1 Seal impression of king Mesannepada of Ur, 2563 – 2524 BCE. The triumphal
symbolism of the king’s seal provided a pictorial emblem of sovereign power for the entire third
phase of the Early Dynastic age.
— Petr Charvát —