The Babylonian World - Historia Antigua

— Cloth in the Babylonian World —
woody/herbaceous plant. Many plants have basts, but only a few have the desirable
characteristics of sheen, strength, structural uniformity and length. The plant has
two domestic varieties, one best for oil, and the other best for its bast. The genetics
of the early domestication of this plant are not yet well understood but we know that
the bast variety was used in Mesopotamia from early times.
Wool was very developed by the time of the Babylonians, but not to the extent
that it was in the subsequent millennium. Fine wool such as that of the merino sheep
did not yet exist. Interestingly, we find references to sheep and goats as described by
their coats – their colour as well as the quality of their wool. For example, in the
texts from Drehem, we see categories of sheep; also notable is the way sheep and
goats were defined by their regional affiliation. This was a significant aspect of the
now burgeoning economic complex that was developing in Babylonia, exemplified
by the Karum of Kanish at Kültepe, where numerous texts describe the exchange
of textiles.
From third-millennium texts we can glean important information regarding wool.
In the third millennium BC at Ur, there are three main wool types according to the
animals which bear the fleece, namely fat-tailed (kungal-la?-ke-ne), native uligi (uligi-ra-ke-ne),
and goat ( Jacobsen 1948: 173; Waetzoldt 1972: 40–44). The breed of
sheep denoted uligi was considered to be a sheep graded below fat-tailed sheep, having
wool fleece graded below that of standard wool sheep but above black sheep (Steinkeller
1995: 64 n. 30). The wool itself is first distinguished by the breed of sheep from
which it derived, and then by whether it was graded at Ur or at the time of plucking.
Jacobsen’s paper does not discuss wool grades in any detail. Suffice it to say that to
some degree, wool grades were already in place during Ur III times according to
thickness of fiber, as well as sheep breed, and that the breeds did in fact produce
different grades of wool.
The earliest historical records in Mesopotamia relevant to the procurement of wool
date to the beginning of the second millennium BC. These texts clearly describe sheep
being plucked. Barber (1991: 29 n. 14) points out that both plucking and shearing
were practiced, evinced by two separate words baqamu (plucking); and gazazu (shearing).
A close inspection of the etymologies of these words reveals that gazazu (shearing)
only appears about 500 years later (by the second half of the second millennium BC)
in reference to obtaining wool from sheep (Åke Sjøberg, personal communication
1996). Shearing was presumably inefficient, being done with a single blade of bronze.
From Ur III times, there are a number of textual sources that relate to sheep and
goat terminology (Steinkeller 1995; Waetzoldt 1972). The sources relate to categories
from ancient Puzrish-Dagan, founded by king Shulgi c.2050 BC as a center for the
distribution of both domestic and wild animals (Steinkeller 1995: 49). Interestingly,
the categories differ from those of neighboring Lagash (Steinkeller 1995: 54). Designations
of fleece and goat hair now consist of wool from “native” sheep, and foreign
or mountain sheep, long-fleeced sheep, Shimashki sheep, black sheep and goat hair
(Steinkeller 1995: 57). Colors range from white, black, reddish brown, yellow and
mottled. Some texts refer to different colors of wool available in Anatolia during the
second millennium BC: white, yellow, bright red, reddish, and “dark”’ (Veenhof 1972:
137, 186–188).
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