Throughout the Old Babylonian period, the ‘great organizations’ were to apply the
principle of herding contracts for their flocks. Fishing grounds in the marshes were
leased out in a comparable way. In return for a fixed amount of fish and reed, the
fishermen were assigned a subsistence plot for the cultivation of barley and were
allowed to hunt their swamp for fowl and fish. Much of the temple land was probably
assigned to temple dependents as subsistence plots. The dependents then leased out
their plot to farmers living in the countryside.
The south under Warad-Sîn and Rim-Sîn of Larsa and
under Babylonian domination (ca. 1834 – 1919 BC)Until the reign of Warad-Sîn, the temple personnel directly supervised the management
of the economic assets and the preparation of the offerings. From then on, the docu-
ments originating from the temple administration diminish in number, and archives
of private townsmen illustrate how they were responsible for directing the flow of
income towards the temple. This development must probably be related to the frag-
mentation of prebendary temple offices. Some lucrative temple offices were included
in the inheritance divisions until they covered only a month or even a few days a
year. The offices could even be leased and sold. Thus, the execution of the task became
separated from the income attached to it, consisting of a share in the offerings and/or
a subsistence plot. A few important temple offices, however, were not fragmented
and remained related to the execution of managerial or cultic tasks.
Also until the reign of Warad-Sîn, the Ningal temple controlled the oversea trade
to Dilmun by levying ten per cent on the incoming products. Warad-Sîn seems to
have transferred this tax to the palace. Through trade with Dilmun, a location in the
Persian Gulf, the Babylonians imported copper, semi-precious stones and spices, in
return for silver, wool and garments, sesame (oil) and wheat. The Gulf trade formed
a monopoly of Ur during the Old Babylonian period. Private merchants executed the
journeys and financed their enterprises by collecting investments from different
households and individuals through loans and partnerships.
After the conquest of the south by Hammurabi, the private archives from Ur
contain hardly any signs of institutional activity. The administration of the province
of Larsa, to which Ur belonged, was centred at Larsa. Even the ‘Overseer of the
Merchants of Ur’, the important local official responsible for the collection of the
share of the Babylonian palace in the economic assets, for its conversion into silver
and for its actual delivery to the Babylonian crown, seems to have resided in Larsa.
Just like Ur, the towns of Nippur and Kutalla have produced several archives from
residential quarters, mainly from the period of domination by Larsa and Babylon.
They all contain chains of title deeds, relating to houses, date-palm orchards, prebends
with the sustenance fields attached to them and slaves, which all could be rented out.
Besides, most archives contain some documents referring to business activities and
investments. These may cover entrepreneurial activities for the temple or the palace,
not only collecting dues and converting them into silver, but also investing temple
and palace silver in loans together with their own silver and organizing craft activities.
Before delivering the silver to the palace or temple household, the entrepreneurs kept
it as long as possible and used it to augment their own capital. The accumulated
— The Old Babylonian economy —