The Babylonian World - Historia Antigua

— Economy of ancient Mesopotamia —
• Individual households of the ruler, members of the royal family, high priests and
the highest officials of the realm for their personal support.
The early second millennium: the emergence of the
tributary economy
External and internal factors, such as the influx of tribal groups, military attacks from
Elam, political rivalries, over-extension of the oikos system, and salinization in the
south of Babylonia, led to significant political and socio-economic changes during
the twentieth century BC. As a result, the household or oikos system of the third
millennium gradually lost its predominance as a decisive economic factor. It was
replaced by a system in which a large proportion of economic activities that hitherto
took place within large institutional households were assigned to individuals farming
small plots of land, or to entrepreneurs. This concerned activities such as large-scale
cereal production, date palm cultivation, animal husbandry, as well as the exploration
of natural resources (fishing, fowling, harvesting of reed, brickmaking). It also
comprised services such as the collection of dues and revenues, the transportation of
agricultural goods, storage of cereals, long-distance trade, as a kind of franchise often
labelled ‘enterprise of the palace’ (German: Palastgeschäft). Since the entrepreneur had
to pay the palace in kind or in silver, this is known as tributary economy (Renger
2000a). Most of the entrepreneurs were members of the administrative elite. The risk
of the enterprise was carried by the entrepreneur. This meant that, more often than
not, they were not able to deliver the promised service, due to various factors, such
as bad harvests, diseases among herds. Since the palace was dependent upon the
services of the entrepreneurs, the accrued debt could be remitted by so-called edicts
(Renger 2000b).
Agricultural production was now largely in the hands of individuals. As before
they were still subjects of the ruler, but instead of daily or monthly rations in kind
they were given a house, an orchard, and fields 4 for their subsistence in exchange for
rendering various types of corvée or to pay rental dues in kind. 5 Besides subsistence
and rental fields assigned to individuals by the palace, privately held property of
arable land also existed in certain parts of Babylonia from the nineteenth to the
seventeenth century BC. However, it is not possible to quantify the relationship
between both types of land holdings (Renger 1995b).
Many aspects of societal and political organization find their plausible explanation
only when one considers the dominant role played by the oikos as well as the tributary
economies during certain periods of Mesopotamian history (Renger 2000b).
Cereal agriculture and date palm cultivation
From early in the fourth millennium onwards, agriculture attained extraordinary
accomplishments, not so much because of technological advances but through highly
developed managerial means, such as the highly effective mobilization of human
labour. Agronomic skills and the optimal use of animal labour by employing draught
animals (oxen) trained to work in teams of four, were major factors in handling
agricultural work on large tracts of land on the institutional domains. 6 Babylonian
cereal agriculture was barley monoculture. Since no natural fertilizer was used, the
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