The Babylonian World - Historia Antigua

— Blahoslav Hrusˇka —
of groundwater. The danger was that if drainage was insufficient and the groundwater
level unstable, artificial irrigation could increase salinization which ultimately ruined
the fertility of the soil. In extreme cases, a field can be ruined for cultivation after
seven years of continuous irrigation. Field agriculture thus could never do without
regular and frequent episodes of fallow.
The ‘Farmer’s Instructions’ 6 recommended three irrigation campaigns at various
stages of the development of the cereal plants to follow after the first leaching: (1)
‘When the plants are higher than the furrow tops’ (after stalk development?); (2) ‘When
the plants are as high as reed for mats’ (before putting on ears of corn?); (3) ‘When the
grain hulls get thicker’ (putting on the ears of corn).
From the Old Babylonian period onwards, the calculation of water volume in tanks
in relation to the area of irrigated fields was a standard mathematical problem in
‘school exercises’. The only aspect of reality in such exercises may have been the
indication of the water level in one single leaching application (for instance, to the
depth of one digit (1 sˇu-si = 1.66 cm). The essential key to rapid conversions was
the ‘level of water 1 sˇu-si deep on an area of 1 iku’, that is, 1.66 cm over 3,600 m 2 ,
or 166 litres per square metre (Powell 1988: 162–163).
THE AGRICULTURAL LANDSCAPE
The inhabited landscapes were characterized by fields and field systems, garden plots,
pastures, 7 by greenery of grassland, reeds and woods. 8 The cultivated ‘earth’ stood in
opposition to the wild and untamed land, the place of ‘foreign realms’. The familiar
landscape was, in fact, enclosed from all cardinal points by ‘all the foreign lands’, on
the north and east by mountains.
In the third and second millenia BC, the intensive agricultural activities (Salonen
1968; Butz 1980–1983) took place in three zones:
1 Strips along natural and artificial water-courses and water reservoirs such as rivers,
channels, lakes, buffering ‘ponds’, with gardens, vegetable fields and with minor
grain fields. Given the need to walk to the fields and to use animal teams for
ploughing, the extent of such strip zones would not have been much wider than
4 km.
2 Artificially irrigated fields with cereal (Maekawa 1984; Renfrew 1984), oil-plant
(Waetzoldt 1985), pulse (Stol 1985; Van Zeist 1985; Renfrew 1985) and onionlike
monocultures (Stol 1987; Waetzoldt 1987).
3 Pastures adjacent to fields and water sources. This zone included land lying fallow
and parts of cultivable steppe, both representing the only reserve of the soil fund.
The division of arable land, either freshly brought under cultivation or lying fallow,
was determined by the quality of the soil. The most fertile tracts fell under the management
and control of the sovereign while lower-quality fields were leased out for
cultivation. The palace and the temple administrations enabled the leaseholders to till
the leased fields by means of animal-traction ploughs (ards) and also supplied traction
animals, fodder, and seed at the onset of the autumn tilling season. The leasing fees
might have included as much as 50 per cent of the harvest. The compulsory deliveries,
as well as the ‘irrigation taxes’, were controlled by collectors (Steinkeller 1981).
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