Early Dynastic economy, may be surmised from the fact that silver, unlike other
precious metals, remained a stable component of grave goods deposited throughout
the third millennium in the Ur cemetery.^64
The strengthening of internal ties of the individual elite groups was imperative in
order to prevent fragmentation of great holdings. This is one of the topics shining
through the otherwise rather murky literary work known as ‘Instructions of
Shuruppak’.^65 The author of the composition takes particular care of instructing his
audience ‘not to manage their houses with discord’, to consider their ‘elder brothers
as fathers and elder sisters as mothers’, and especially tries to inculcate in them his
most famous dictum, that a ‘loving heart builds houses, and a hateful heart tears
them down’. The author does not forget to admonish his readers to bow to authority,
but also not to repudiate one’s wife and not to rebel against the authority of parents.
The solidification of family structures meant that power was concentrated in the
hands of chiefs of elite groups,^66 and it also entailed the diminution of the social
significance of certain of their members, such as women: the elite engagement in
public affairs is reflected by the observation that the group of personages appearing
in various transactions recorded by the Fara texts is, in fact, rather limited.^67 Women
seem to participate actively in real-estate transactions less frequently than men there.^68
The less prominent status of women in the later Early Dynastic period is also borne
out by art historical record. Out of some ninety inscribed intercessor statuettes of
this age, women commissioned no more than six.^69
On the public side, the elites participated intensely in the exercise of public charges.
Hundreds of men and thousands of track animals fulfilled the orders of the Shuruppak
managers,^70 toiling on arable lands measured in hundreds of hectares. Bondsmen from
all over Sumer set out towards Fara to discharge their obligations.^71 Two Fara texts
feature a breathtaking number of more than 160 , 000 labour hands.^72 Supplies for
these masses of workers might have been deposited in the local baked-brick silos,
built sometime in the ED III period.^73
The elites did not fail to engage in public cults. Elite sponsorship of religious
establishments did take place at Lagash,^74 and in other Sumerian cities, examples
being known from as far as Mari.^75 Possible traces of ‘chiefly rituals’ were discovered
at the Abu-Salabikh ash tip.^76 Human and animal figures, including model chariots,
however crudely done, might have served in temple rituals pertaining to high-status
males. Comparable finds clearly turned up at Ur. Perhaps we can imagine them being
used for something of the nature of the Egyptian ‘execration rituals’ which sought a
magical victory over a feared adversary.
Members of influential families took up the development of the land’s spiritual
heritage. As early as the first segment of the Early Dynastic period, inhabitants of
elite households such as, for instance, the West Mound of Abu Salabikh, did appropriate
- and even use for purely domestic purposes – such inventions as the cuneiform
writing and cylinder seals.^77 It was the exercise of their creativity that brought forth
the burgeoning of the late Early Dynastic literary tradition. All of a sudden, such
original and unique creations as the very first incantations of Sumerian literature,^78
or the ‘Instructions of Suruppak’,^79 make their appearance. The Early Dynastic Geo-
graphical List^80 was another innovation. Pietro Mander ( 1986 ) treated at great depth
the Early Dynastic lists of divinities, taking note of the adjustments and developments
of the earlier, Late Uruk tradition. The integration of the first Semitic deities into
— Petr Charvát —