owned, on fi sh they caught, and even on burials of the dead.
Merchants also paid import and export duties. Sumerians,
however, did not pay their taxes with money, because cur-
rency did not exist anywhere in the ancient Near East until
the invention of coinage in the sixth century b.c.e. Instead,
taxpayers brought to the temple and palace animals, grain,
dates, pottery, and cloth, among other items. Such payment is
known as payment in kind.
Th e tax was a payment for the privilege of working the
land, which belonged to the god or goddess of the city (each
urban center being the home of specifi c deity). Th e represen-
tatives of the local god or goddess were the city’s ruler, its
priests, and its palace authorities. Although private owner-
ship of land did exist, many of the fi elds and pastures were
in the hands of the temple and the palace. Both the religious
and secular authorities increased their holdings by purchas-
ing land or by confi scating it from those who failed to pay
their taxes.
By around 3000 b.c.e. an established system of distribu-
tion existed in the city-states of Sumer. As goods came into
temples and palaces, they were placed in jars, baskets, or
rooms, to which were affi xed clay seals. Records of amounts
were kept by placing clay counters or tokens into spherical
clay containers, known as bullae, much as paper records to-
day are placed in fi le folders. With the invention of writing
at the end of the fourth millennium, a written record of the
content of each bulla was incised or impressed onto its sur-
face. Eventually, the written record, incised on a clay tablet,
replaced the bullae.
Sumerian priests and palace offi cials oversaw the use to
which the food and goods collected as tax were put. Some of
the yield was stockpiled for times of famine, while some was
reserved as seed for the next year’s crop. A portion of the tax
was used as off erings in religious ritual. Taxes also went to-
ward fi nancing the construction and maintenance of irriga-
tion canals and public buildings. Th ey paid for wars, which in
turn brought back booty and tribute as additional revenues
for each Sumerian city-state.
Additionally, some of the goods were used for trade, an
important part of the economy of each Sumerian city-state.
Food, which was sent to other, less productive regions of
the Near East; pottery; and textiles were all important trade
goods. In exchange, the Sumerian cities received stone and
timber for building and metal for tools and weapons, as well
as jewelry, perfumes, exotic animals, and other luxury items
that became part of the personal wealth of religious and gov-
ernment offi cials or were given out as gift s to others to buy
their support.
Finally, although many of the city’s households pro-
duced enough food, clothing, and other goods to feed their
members even aft er paying their taxes, others did not and
depended on the collected tax to meet their needs. Among
those dependent upon tax stores were a city-state’s ruler, its
priests and priestesses, and its government bureaucrats, along
with their families. Others were craft speople who produced
cloth, pottery, and metal tools and weapons. Th e tax freed
both the Sumerian elite and the craft speople from the neces-
sity of providing for at least some of their own needs and thus
gave them the time to perform their duties and work.
Payment in kind was not the only method of settling a
tax bill in ancient Sumer. Th ere was also a labor tax. Known
in modern times as a corvée, the labor obligation meant that
the members of a household had to work a certain number
of days in the fi elds controlled by its temple and palace, in
digging or cleaning out irrigation canals, and in construct-
ing public buildings. Of all the taxes, the corvée was the
most burdensome. Farmers found themselves bringing in the
harvest of the temple and the palace while their own crops
languished in the fi elds. Worse still was military service that
sometimes sent men away from their farms for months at a
time, sometimes never to return if they were killed in battle.
Women and children, on the other hand, were employed
in large weaving factories, in addition to performing agri-
cultural labor. Textiles were a Sumerian economic mainstay,
used for gift s, religious off erings, and trade items. Th us hun-
dreds and sometimes thousands of women and children in
each city-state plucked the wool from sheep and spun it, wove
it, and washed the fi nal cloth product. Women were also re-
sponsible for brewing beer from stores of grain.
Th e Sumerian tax burden had the benefi cial eff ect of im-
proving production effi ciency so that the number of items
a worker could produce increased. For instance, in order to
turn out more ceramic bowls and pots faster, craft speople
moved from forming pottery solely by hand to using molds
and potter’s wheels. Th e rise of centers that specialized in
making particular goods, such as pottery, metals, or textiles,Mesopotamian stone vase dating to the late fourth millennium b.c.e,
depicting animals of the fi rst city dwellers of Mesopotamia; cattle and
sheep were an important part of the economy. (© Th e Trustees of the
British Museum)economy: The Middle East 351