already existed in the Chaldean period, but they are most amply attested in the fifth
century thanks to a group of texts, the so-called Murashû archive, named after a
family-based firm of entrepreneurs that operated in the rural hinterland of Nippur.
At least in part such estates seem to have been situated on previously temple-owned
lands. In general, sixth-century texts suggest that the royal administration requisitioned
surplus temple land for its own purposes.
The archives of propertied city dwellers contain ample information on private
ownership of agricultural land; fields and gardens in private hands could be bought
and sold freely. In the sixth century, one frequently hears of land that had come into
the hands of upper-class families as a result of land allotment schemes sponsored by
king, temple, or city authorities. In the seventh or early sixth centuries it had been
acquired in the context of the reclamation of land that had fallen into disuse in the
previous period of economic decline and political unrest.^6 At least some city-based
families were also part of the land-for-service system by virtue of holding titles to
estates encumbered with service and tax obligations of different kinds.
Well-to-do families would normally own date groves of not much over a hectare
of surface area, mostly within easy reach from the city, if not actually within the
walls. Such family gardens and, particularly in the south, fields were prized assets
and normally only alienated in cases of distress, since they formed the background
of the subsistence strategy of their owners (even though these might pursue many
different kinds of activities in the city) (see Wunsch in this volume). Gardens were
most often rented out to free tenants, less frequently they were entrusted to family
slaves or managed (and worked) directly by the proprietors.
Private involvement in agriculture beyond the rentier kind of property management
described above is likewise attested; agricultural contracting, leasing and subleasing,
occurred not just in the institutional sphere. Some city-based entrepreneurs specialised
in managing estates in private as well as institutional hands or invested much money
in the purchase (and amelioration) of land on a large scale. Such activities always
went hand in hand with other business, such as trade in primary and processed
agricultural products.
An important part of the population which left next to no traces in the written
documentation were subsistence-farming villagers. Small rural settlements are normally
not excavated, and textual information is usually restricted to villages which included
temple estates or holdings of (rich) urbanites.^7 If these connections to the cities (and
the city archives) are lacking, villages appear in the texts only in exceptional cases,
for instance as places of origin of workers hiring themselves out to temples for canal
or building work.^8 Nevertheless, the independent village has to be considered an
important constituent part of the Babylonian agricultural landscape (see Richardson
in this volume).
ANIMAL HUSBANDRYThe necessary complement to agriculture in Babylonia, sheep breeding, is amply
attested in first-millennium sources of institutional origin.^9 The temples’ large flocks
were often entrusted to so-called herdsmen on a contractual basis. These men, who
have to be considered entrepreneurs, were required to deliver a certain number of
animals and a certain amount of wool at the time of the shearing.^10 These amounts
— The Babylonian economy in the first millennium BC—