Other plots^9 were held by various agents and dignitaries, perhaps on a temporal
basis. The ‘Sovereign’ fields belonging to the palace and temples provided for the
needs of non-agricultural workers, such as builders or craft workers.
Considerable efforts were made to preserve soil quality. Measures include the
division of field systems into fields and plots, the practice of long- and short-term
fallow, soil leaching, as well as the probable crop rotation. Fields were separated by
wider zones of overgrowth, which protected the soil from wind erosion. The actual
situation of fields and plots was described in survey texts. The upper and lower
margins of the field system close to water sources were employed for cultivation of
vegetables and spices. Tamarisks grew along the sides of the field system and perhaps
also in some inner orchards. Although the general situation of individual fields must
have had a considerable agrotechnical significance – access roads, irrigation, direction
of the ‘ridges’ and furrows – these purely practical questions of tillage did not concern
the palace or temple administration because they were the responsibility of the ‘farmer’
(Sum. engar).
ARABLE SOIL AND THE PREPARATION
OF FIELDSAccording to the records on cultivation and overgrowth control,^10 the palace and
temple administrations dedicated most attention to the land assigned to cereal
cultivation.^11 Texts focusing on the overgrowth can in some cases be interpreted as
rough harvest estimates but the term could also be used in references to full grown
cereals^12 before harvest which would have made it possible to determine the appropriate
lease fee. Texts that set the lease fee after the harvest remain problematic.
Such fields must have been in an excellent state in order to calculate the expected
harvest. Analyses of soil probes taken in Mesopotamia have shown critically low
proportions of humus and nitrates even for ancient strata. Improvement of soil quality
by compost and manuring are, nonetheless, attested in the texts. Animal dung was
spread over the fields either during movement of herds or during carefully monitored
grazing on young grain stalks which supported stalk emergence and growth. Unfortun-
ately, ancient soil improvement practices are difficult to document archaeologically
(Nützel 1981 ).
The soil preparation was connected with the adoption of plough agriculture (Hrusˇka
1985 , 1988 ). The development of plough agriculture, which took place in Southern
Mesopotamia in the fourth millenium BCat the very latest, relied on the traction of
cattle, donkeys and other hooved animals of the Equidaefamily. Attempts at the
zoological identification of hybrids^13 have resulted in a debate that has not produced
unequivocal conclusions (Zarins 1986 : 185 – 188 ). Since the harnessing of bulls is
impossible, young animals must have been castrated, except for those kept aside for
breeding purposes. Donkeys and hybrids first bore the yoke when they were four
years old. Both young, yoked, and ‘reserved or replacement’ animals were regularly
controlled by an ‘inspector’ (nu-banda 3 ). The young animals were put together with
mature ones during the month named for this practice ‘house of the herds’.^14 ‘Draught
donkeys’ for wagons (ansˇe-mar) were calculated singly not in teams. The ‘animal-
team administrators’ were obviously superior to draught-animal herdsmen, much as
the farmers (engar) were to the ploughmen (sag-apin).
— Agricultural techniques —