the time of Enentarzi, while large temple projects initiated earlier by Eannatum func-
tioned perfectly well without a single word having been written.
In spiritual matters, the survival of traditional symbols in such common everyday
articles as pottery shows that traditional beliefs, rooted in the countryside from time
immemorial, were as vivacious as ever. Let it suffice here to point to decoration of
pottery vessels of Tepe Gawra VI.^105 Storage vessels bear images of such denizens of
the earthly and subterranean kingdom as snakes or scorpions, invoking presumably
the sphere of fertility.^106
THE UNDERPRIVILEGEDThe written sources document two categories of underprivileged persons: ‘serfs’ and
prisoners of war. Male serfs (igi-nu-du 8 in Uru’inimgina’s texts) constituted service
personnel and performed what was presumably the heaviest menial work, digging
wells and irrigation channels.^107 Women ground grain.^108 As an example of the condi-
tions under which these ‘corn-grinders’ (geme 2 -kikken)^109 worked, we have the milling
room at Ebla in which sixteen sets of grinding stones were set into the clay banks of
the palace.^110 In economic texts, people identified as igi-nu-du 8 worked as auxiliary
personnel and received food rations all year long.^111 At least some of them ended up
in this situation through ‘voluntary’ enslavement as a consequence of heavy debts.^112
Others may have been purchased already as slaves or slave girls.^113 Their low status
is indicated by the prices some of them fetched: Dim 3 -tur, consort of Enenetarzi,
bought a gala slave(?) for one-third of a mina of silver (= twenty shekels), while a
‘serf’ cost fourteen shekels.^114 The igi-nu-du 8 found employment not only in gardening,
but also assisted craftspeople.^115 In texts, they were distinguished according to their
geographical origin.^116 It is possible that one of the aims of the so-called edicts of
Uru’inimgina may have been to determine something like their ‘minimum wage’.^117
Prisoners-of-war (nam-ra) seem to be depicted on art monuments in which naked
prisoners with bound hands, or set into stocks, are shown. A Girsu (Lagash) text of
possibly ED III age refers to binding the arms of personnel abandoned by their
superiors, presumably by the invader.^118
CONCLUSIONSIn general character, this era of Sumerian history was not unlike our own times. The
old aristocratic order of firmly rooted customs, usages and obligations sanctioned by
long-term social practices gave way and the political arena was now free for anyone
who felt the urge to assume a position of importance. The commoners looked up to
people whom they trusted and respected to provide examples of righteous conduct.
The elites, being only human, did whatever they could, bringing their subject here
to jubilation, there to despair. The overall performance of the foremost women and
men of ED III Sumer may be measured by language: for the first time in recorded
human history, notions such as ‘liberty’ and ‘justice’, but also of ‘sin’ and ‘guilt’, turn
up in public parlance.
— Social configurations in Early Dynastic Babylonia —