of a hired man) corresponded to 22 to 75 square metres of orchard land (with a normal
density of one to two trees). Orchards with a few or young trees were relatively
cheaper, agricultural land up to ten times more, depending on soil quality.
It is often possible to deduce from the sales and other documents why a property
was sold. Frequently it was to pay off debts, sometimes debts had accumulated for
two generations, with the property being pawned, until there was no alternative to
selling. Sometimes fields or orchards formed part of a communal inheritance or business
partnership, and the owners wanted to sell all or part of it, because there had been
a quarrel, or because the parcels had become too small through partition, or the
cultivation too complicated, or when they needed the money for something else.
The cultivation of a property was effected by the leaseholders, which included slaves
belonging to the Egibi. Lease contracts with special clauses document that date culti-
vation in the Babylon area was heavily intensified and that numerous new plantations
were made along the canals. This procedure was very labour intensive and the
leaseholder was compensated accordingly by high proportions of the yield over several
years. Since this meant that advantages and profits only accrued after several years it
proves the far-sighted and long-term investment strategies of the Egibi.
It was Nabû-ah
̆
h
̆e ̄-iddin who made the first purchase of tillable property outside
the gates of Babylon, just a few months after Neriglissar had usurped the throne. As
we have seen, he had already established business contacts with Neriglissar during
the reign of Nebuchadrezzar and now benefited from this connection. Since the ‘fate’
of this field is well documented across three generations, we can use it as a case study
for how the Egibi acquired and cultivated property, how it was subject to partition
in each generation and how the heirs tried to consolidate their share through exchanges
and re-purchase.
Nabû-ah
̆
h
̆e ̄-iddin bought an area of 24 kur (ca. 2 , 300 m × 140 m = 32. 4 hectare),
situated on both sides of the New Canal, north-west of the city. The document was
signed by high-ranking witnesses: the governor of Babylon and seven royal judges
who, together with the four scribes, rolled their seal along the edges of the tablet.
The vendors were four brothers, facing Nabû-ahhe-iddin as the sole purchaser. The
buying price, 221 ⁄ 3 minas (about 11 , 166 kg) of silver, however, was not handed over
to the four vendors but to the temple of Marduk, Esagila, who had a claim against
the brothers ‘on account of oxen’ as it says.
The background emerges from other documents since the brothers handed the
existing sale contract to the buyer, as was the custom at the time, in order to show
that they had purchased the property legitimately and they were entitled to sell it
on. According to this sales contract, the father of the four brothers had bought the
property in the thirtieth regnal year of Nebuchadrezzar through a middle man, when
he himself was acting governor of Babylon. A later, unfortunately fragmentary, text
cites a directive by Neriglissar concerning our field, which he issued after his accession
to the throne. Is it too fanciful to think of this as a case of corruption or enrichment
in office penalized by the new ruler? After all, the governor of Babylon had considerable
debts, at least to the temple of Marduk. And is it coincidence that Neriglissar’s
protégé, Nabû-ah
̆
h
̆e ̄-iddin got a good deal with his purchase? Although he paid a
somewhat higher price than the governor had paid 15 years previously (about 17 per
cent), the value of the property had also risen in the meantime because of the new
— Cornelia Wunsch —