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Babylonia: Recessions, Epidemics, Environmental Crises

/. A. Brinkman Babylonian era around and shortly after the time of The history of independent Hammurabi (180O-1650 Babylon (1894-539 B.C.) B.C.) and in the New was not one sustained rise Babylonian kingdom under from humble beginnings as a the dynasty founded by local dynasty to the glorious Nebuchadnezzar's father empire of the biblical (625-539 B.C.) The inter­ Nebuchadnezzar. Rather it vening period is much less may be viewed as a series of well known, but its stretch of peaks and troughs, as politi­ more than one thousand cal power and economic years during which cultural strength waxed and waned. and political traditions were The two high points— transmitted between high politically and culturally— points is worth investigating. seem to have been in the Old This millennium itself,

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though not as successful as of questions we are beginning l the absolute peaks, shows a to ask. distinctive profile of Recessions, declines in reduced-scale high and low | living conditions, and im- points. There were times of I poverishment are all relative | demonstrable political terms and imply a standard strength, as when the various against which high, medium, rival segments of southern and low points can be mea­ Mesopotamia coalesced for sured. One of the tasks I have the first time into the unified been engaged in this year was nation state of Babylonia in to construct a chart recording ! the 15th century. There were \ relative density of economic I times of political weakness, activity over a 990-year span I as in the 8th century when | from 1595 to 605 B.C. The the king in Babylon was a j number of dated economic i local tribesman and the old transactions per year is being : cities of the realm fought civil plotted on something akin to wars. My researches recently a graph, yielding figures have been concentrating on roughly comparable to the the mechanisms of crisis in number of sales made annu­ Babylonian society: the ally on a stock exchange. This periods of economic depres- fluctuating volume of eco­ I sion and recession, times of nomic activity bears inter­ j pestilence and depopulation, esting correlations to political eras marked by environmen­ ebbs and flows, reflecting tal shifts that signalled ag­ military successes and dis­ ricultural and social collapse. asters, tribal disruptions, One of the main difficulties crop failures, and the like. in studying economically im- More important it gives an I poverished eras is that these approximate index of relative leave considerably fewer | prosperity in different traces than prosperous years, | periods when internal con- especially in the way of writ­ ! ditions in Babylonia might ten documents. So one must I otherwise be hard to compare | search for new types of evi­ I to a single standard. The pro- dence and new method- t cedure still has many ! ologies to deal with scanty shortcomings, and one must documentation. The reader be cautious not to over- i j may be interested in the types interpret movements, espe- j

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cially for very short time been experiencing part of a spans or for under- broader pattern of (global?) represented locales. But this climatic change as evidenced is a beginning in an attempt by drought phenomena for to subject long-term eco­ the decline of the Mycenean nomic trends in Babylonia to age in Greece and the waning quantitative analysis. Late Bronze age farther east Declines can also be seen in (c. 1200-1000) and by mon­ other ways. There are drops soon failure in northwest in population size and shifts India in the same general time in population distribution; range. A major shift west­ some of these can be detected ward of the Euphrates chan­ archaeologically as well as in nels) probably also took documents. Archaeological place at some point in the late surveys in some sections of second millennium B.C., lower Mesopotamia have though even an approximate suggested sharp population date has yet to be satisfactor­ declines in Babylonia be­ ily determined. These and tween 1200 and 625 B.C. I other environmental changes have noted passages in docu­ could have caused severe ments from both Assyria and dislocations in urban and ag­ Babylonia during this time ricultural patterns in range which allude to Babylonia. drought, crop failure, move­ These are fairly wide- ments of hungry populations, ranging observations over a and outbreaks of plague. It broad spectrum of inter­ may not be pure coincidence related and interdisciplinary that the only known major problems. The study of pro­ literary work composed in cesses of decline may in the Babylonia between 1000 and long run turn out to be as 700 B.C. has as its central significant as the study of actor Erra, the plague god. classical high phases in il­ On another plane, one must luminating the total career of also consider whether mankind. Babylonia might not have

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