The economy of the prebendary system in Hellenistic Uruk Julien MONERIE (PhD student Université Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne – ArScAn UMR 7041)

Note : Please note that this paper is a provisional version for discussion, and must not be quoted.

« But the priests went in by night, according to their custom, with their wives, and their children: and they eat and drank all up » (Daniel 14.14)

The existence of the Mesopotamian institution of the isqu (sumerian GIŠ.ŠUB.BA), usually defined as « the right to an income from the temple in return for a service connected to the cult »1, can be traced back to the end of the third millenium B.C. As such, the isqu-system played a major role in the economy of the Sumero-Akkadian temples, and the owners of isqu shares could rely on regular revenues, mostly paid in kind (barley, dates, meat portions...)2 and partly derived from the remains of the offerings presented to the gods in their temple provided they carried out the corresponding cultic duties. As a matter of fact, the institution was so tightly linked to the organization of the Babylonian cult that it was seen as one of its prominent features, as one can clearly see from the biblical episode of Daniel unmasking the priests of Bel. According to this episode, the priests of Babylon came back at night to the cella of Bel, along with their families, to eat and drink the ritual offerings and make people believe their god was alive, until the prophet Daniel revealed their trickery to king Cyrus (Daniel 14.1-22). Although this importance of the isqu-system in the Mesopotamian cultic organization remained paramount until the very end of the Sumero-Akkadian civilization, the institution did not remain unchanged over the two millenia of its history. Its main trend seems to have been a slow evolution from a strictly personal grant closely tied to the fulfilling of cultic duties to a fully alienable property, as the bonds between cultic service and income rights gradually became more loose3. This evolution is one of the reason why isqu is usually translated by « prebend », a notion borrowed from Western European ecclesiastical history, which is partly anachronical but convenient, and has been generally accepted among scholars. The « late » stage of the evolution of this Mesopotamian prebendary system is particularly well documented for the city of Uruk, in Southern Babylonia. Two sanctuaries, the Bīt-Rēš, dedicated to the god Anu, and the Irigal, the sanctuary of the goddesses Ištar and Nanaya, dominated the religious life of the city at this time. The site yielded about seven hundred administrative and legal cuneiform texts on clay tablets, dating from the Late-Achaemenid and the Hellenistic period, and as far as the beginning of the Parthian period, a period usually labelled as « Late-Babylonian »4. The tablets were found mostly in the preccincts of these sanctuaries, by both legal and illegal excavations, between 1850 and 19845. Among these, almost two hundred dealt with prebends6. Spanning over two centuries, from the very beginning of the third to the very end of the

1 BONGENAAR 1997 : 140. 2 Payments in silver are sometimes attested, but they seem to have been much less frequent. See e.g., for Borsippa, the oxherds of the Ezida in the Neo-Babylonian period (WAERZEGGERS 2010 : 297-299) or, for the Late-Babylonian period, the brewers' archive of Borsippa (MONERIE forthcoming a)). 3 This evolution has been thoroughly studied by VAN DRIEL 2002 : 54-66 and CORÒ 2005 : 11-38. 4 This designation usually refers to the last stage of the Sumero-Akkadian documentation, between the reign of Darius II (423-405 B.C.) and the last cuneiform tablet, dated to 61 A.D. 5 On the history of the foundings from Late-Babylonian Uruk, see CLANCIER 2009 : 28-42. 6 The prebend documentation from the other cities of Babylonia remains rather sketchy for this period: Babylon did not yield any legal cuneiform text concerning prebends, and the organisation of the isqu-system in the sanctuary of Esagil remains only attested by indirect administrative texts (cf. BOIY 2004 : 248-249), as is the case for the Ezida sanctuary of Borsippa (cf. MONERIE forthcoming a)). Overall, only three Hellenistic legal documents dealing with second century B.C.7, this rich corpus, with a both varied and consistent documentation, has constantly drawn attention from the very beginning of assyriological research8. A sizeable proportion of these documents, however, still remain to be published. Thanks to the help of the scholars in charge of their publications9, who allowed me to study these documents, new observations on what has often been described as the « prebendary market » of Late-Babylonian Uruk can now be proposed10. The whole picture of the prebendary system, however, still remains far from complete. As a matter of fact, we have serious reason to believe that the cuneiform contracts on clay tablets conserved in the temples were not prominent items from a legal point of view, and that some of the prebendary transactions were actually written on (perishable) leather documents, which are irreparably lost to us11. The fortune of conservation added some lacunae to our documentation, with the result that only a few types of prebends present sufficient information for study and often with hazardous chronological distribution, alterning densely documented short-time periods with wide gaps of silence. These features, of course, considerably impede our understanding of the system. Nevertheless, the corpus remains remarkably rich for Antiquity, and provide sufficently detailed information to study the features and trends of the prebendary economy of Late-Babylonian Uruk. After having considered the general organisation of the isqu-system and its evolutions in the course of the first millenium B.C., I will then concentrate on the price data of the Hellenistic Uruk corpus, and finally attempt to propose and interpretation of their evolution.

Let us consider first the general organization of the prebendary system in the First Millenium B.C.12. It appears rather clearly from the documentation that the isqu-system did not include the whole temple community. On this matter, the Hellenistic Uruk corpus provide some information about non-prebendary occupations within the sanctuary: the lower-middle stratum of the permanent staff, for instance, was paid with standard food allowances (kurummātu)13, as was also probably the case for its lower stratum, formed by various types of dependant workforce, such as the oblates14. These strata were then excluded from the redistribution circuit of the cultic

prebends were found outside Uruk up till now: two come from the Ekur of Nippur (VAN DER SPEK 1992 txt. 1 and 2) and one from the Ebabbar of Larsa (OECT 9 26). 7 The latest tablet dealing with prebends is actually the most recent cuneiform text found in Uruk (KESSLER 1984). It is dated from 108 B.C., and deals with the transfer of a butcher's prebend. The Parthians took over Babylonia for the first time in 141 B.C., and then permanently from 127 B.C. onwards. 8 The first study of Hellenistic prebend sales from Uruk was OPPERT / MÉNANT 1877 : 291-334. For the more recent studies, see DOTY 1977, MCEWAN 1981, FUNCK 1984 and lately CORÒ 2005. 9 I would like to thank especially Pr. Ben Foster, in Yale University, who allowed me to go through the texts of the forthcoming YOS 20 volume, and for the London texts, in would like to warmly thank Pr. Christopher Walker, the Trustees of the British Museum, and Mrs. Paola Corò-Capitanio, who is in charge of the publication of a new set of tablets from Hellenistic Uruk. 10 The subject has already been tackled by G.J.P. McEwan (1981, especially : 109-120). The increase of the available documentation since thirty years, though, justifies a reevaluation of the data. 11 The tablet OECT 9 24, a sale receipt dating from 228 B.C. and concerning several prebend-shares, presents an unusual phrasing and ends with a note indicating that the tablet is the copy of an original leather document established the preceding month (r. 32 : šaṭārānū šuāti gabarû kušgiṭṭi ša ina arhu ayyāru ša šatta agâ epšu « these documents are a copy of a leather-document made in the month ayyāru of this year »). On this document and its implications, see CLANCIER 2005. 12 For a detailed presentation of the isqu-system, see VAN DRIEL 2002 : 33-151. More specifically, for the First Millenium B.C., see JURSA et alii 2010 : 155-168. 13 For Hellenistic Uruk, these standard food allowances consisted in a most likely yearly income of 6 kor (= 1080 l.) of barley, 6 kor (= 1080 l.) of dates and 15 minas (= 7,5 kg) of wool. Another standard type, maybe intended for higher status occupations, consisted in two units of this standard allowance. Only few can be said about the occupations corresponding to these incomes: OECT 9 48 mentions a goldsmith (kutīmu) allowance, BRM 2 56 (= YOS 20 71) seems to deal with the allowance of a carpenter of the sanctuary (nagāru ša bīt ilāni) and BRM 2 33 mentions an allowance attached to the occupation of gatekeeper (atû). 14 Several Hellenistic administrative texts from the Esagil of Babylon attest the fact that the oblates (širku) were given rations (see BOIY 2004 : 274-275). Little is known about this institution in Hellenistic Uruk (see MCEWAN 1981 : 59). offerings, that formed a prominent part of the prebendary incomes. Nevertheless, the borders of the isqu-system were not identical with those of the redistribution circuit, since at the other end of the temple hierarchy, the administrative board of the sanctuary, as well as some specific clerical positions, received portions of sacrificial meat through the redistribution circuit without occupying prebendary positions, as clearly appears in the so-called « Meat distribution Protocol » of the Eanna temple of Uruk15. Between these two extremes, spreading over a large « upper-middle stratum » of the temple- community, lied the occupations integrated to the isqu-system. Though it remains sometimes difficult to determine the reasons why one position was part of the system while another was not16, most of the scholars now agree on the fact that the main criterium for a prebendary status was the actual involvement of the occupation implied in the cultic activity17. This involvement in the cult had practical consequences on the access to prebendary positions, which was restricted to individuals who were biological offspring of a priest, with a ritually perfect body, and in possession of an document entitling him to possess a prebend share. If the candidate was declared fit, his admission to the priestly community was symbolically marked by a shaving ceremony (gullubu)18. The community itself, however, was not homogeneous, and the priests seem to have enjoyed various positions, depending on the degree of their involvement in the cultic activites. On this matter, the main dividing line seems to have lied between the priests who were allowed to enter into the sacred parts of the sanctuary (ērib bīti, literally « temple-enterer ») and those who were not. The former, who were in charge of the actual delivery of the offerings that the latter had prepared19, enjoyed a higher status, especially when they were in charge of the presentation of offerings in major temples or before major gods (cf. infra). Besides this main difference, that lied mainly on ritual purity concerns, the prebendary system covered a large variety of occupations, from which one can distinguish the « ritualists », who were in charge of the performance of the ritual cere- monies (« meal presentation prebends », exorcists, lamentation-priests, singers...), the « purveying

th 15 The tablet (OECT 1 20) was published by G.J.P. McEwan (1983). The original text seems to date back to the IX century B.C. but, as C. Waerzeggers noted, the document has a wider relevance (cf WAERZEGGERS 2010 : 258-260). The tablet is arranged in several sections, sorted by type of offering. Each section assigns specific meat portions to such and such occupation. If we take a look, for instance, at the last section, devoted to the offerings of she-lambs and nannies (ll. 93-97), the only prebendary profession mentioned is the butcher (ṭābihu, l. 97). All the other recipients do exercise prebendary occupations, and pertain either to the administrative board of the sanctuary, such as the chief administator (šatammu, l. 93), or to very specific clerical positions, such as the high priest (ahu rabû l. 94), the prophet (mahhû, l. 95) or the ritual actor (kurgarrû, l. 96). Interestingly, the share of the šatammu is qualified as « food allowances » (kurummātu), using the same term as the rations given to the lesser artisans of the sanctuary in the Hellenistic documentation. 16 The occupation of gatekeeper, for instance, seems to have lied across the lower border of the system: while the the position of gatekeeper of the Treasure house of the sanctuary (atû ša bīt makkur ša bīt ilāni ša Uruk) seems to have been remunerated with food allowances (BRM 2 34, dating 188-187 B.C.), another (fragmentary) tablet clearly shows that some of the gatekeepers positions of the Bīt-Rēš were part of the isqu-system (BiMes 24 11, dating 242- 241 B.C.), as was the position of overseer-gatekeeper of the Gate of Anu and the Entrance Gate (sukkal atû ša bāb ša Anu u bāb nērebi) (BRM 2 03, dating 292 B.C.). Likewise, it remains difficult to determine why the master- builders (itinnu) of the sanctuaries were part of the prebendary system (YOS 20 39, BiMes 24 01 // BRM 2 22), while the carpenters were not (BRM 2 56 = YOS 20 71). On this absence of clear-cut borders of the system, see MCEWAN 1981 : 68-69 and VAN DRIEL 2002 : 39. 17 See for instance WAERZEGGERS 2010 : 34-38. The importance of this criterium in the system is perfectly clear, for Hellenistic Uruk, from the difference between the simple goldsmiths of the sanctuary (kutīmu), who were remunerated with food-allowances (OECT 9 48), and those specifically in charge of the cultic implements (ērib bīt pirištu u kutīmu, literally « enterer of the secret chamber and goldsmith ») who were part of the isqu-system (OECT 9 33, 42, 44, 45 // 46, 50, 51, 55 // 56, 57, 60, 68 and VS 15 37). 18 On these aspects of the admission to the prebendary community, see JURSA et alii 2010 : 155-156 and WAERZEGGERS 2010 : 51-55. The author considers, following the definition C. Waerzeggers (2010 : 36-38), that these criteria, taken together, validate the denomination of « priest » to designate the members of the prebendary professions. 19 On these questions, see especially VAN DRIEL 2002 : 112-117. It seems that the court of the temple (kisallu) played an important part as an interface between the people who were not allowed to enter the sacred precinct and the ērib bīti, who presented the offerings to the gods (cf. WAERZEGGERS 2010 : 304-307). trades », who managed the production (oxherds, date-palm gardeners...) and supplied the offerings (oil-pressers, brewers, bakers, butchers...), and finally the « auxiliaries », who performed the maintenance-tasks of the cultic activities (master-builders, goldsmiths, barbers, gatekeepers, temple- attendants...)20. Despite this heterogeneity, all these prebendary occupations shared one fundamental feature: they were designed for the care of the cultic service of the gods. As such, they implied certain obligations, among which the foremost was the attendance to specific turns of service21. These terms were organized within the frame of a duty-roster system, that securely ensured the continuity of the cultic activity. But this was not the only duty of the prebend-holders, since they were also supposed to take care of the cultic activites as a body, by paying running-costs taxes, such as the tēlītu in Neo- Babylonian Ezida of Borsippa22 and by participating to the major building works of the sanctuary23. The prebendary status, however, also gave rights to substantial revenues in compensation for the service24. The documentation can sometimes supply very detailed information on these revenues among which, as we have seen, the redistribution of cultic offerings played a prominent (though not exclusive) role25. Unfortunately, despite these precious informations, the overall value of the various incomes related to the prebendary service always remains out of reach, impeding every attempt to estimate with precision the economic profitability of the system26.

All these general features stand for the whole First Millenium B.C. That is not to say, however, that the isqu-system remained unchanged along the whole millenium, and indeed, some major evolutions can be identified between the Neo-Babylonian27 and the Late-Babylonian period. The traditionally close links between some families and their prebendal activities, for instance, were still prominent in the Neo-Babylonian period28, whereas they had almost completely disappeared in the Late-Babylonian period29. Similarly, the holding of several types of prebend shares in the hands of single individuals, only rarely attested in the Neo-Babylonian period30, seems to have spread and

20 I follow here the typology proposed by G. van Driel (2002 : 35) and followed by JURSA et alii 2010 : 158-159. 21 The organisation of the prebendary service in turns of service remains visible in the etymology of the Akkadian term isqu, which originally designates the « lot », the « assigned share » (cf the Sumerian GIŠ.ŠUB.BA, literally « falling stick », possibly from the original way to randomly determine the person in charge for something) and only begins to designate a « prebend » from the Neo-Babylonian period onwards. 22 See WAERZEGGERS 2010 : 329-337. 23 See for instance WAERZEGGERS 2010 : 337-345 for a study of the renovation of the riverside wall of the Ezida and its financial consequences. The priests were also supposed to pay royal taxes and participate to corvee works for the Crown, both of which seem to have increased under the Achaemenid rule (WAERZEGGERS 2010 : 345-352). 24 C. Waerzeggers rightfully underlined that « remuneration was paid for performing the tasks, not for owning the prebend. This distinction is subtle but crucial for understanding how the prebendary system worked » (2010 : 310). Likewise, the phrasing of the Hellenistic Uruk service agreements show that the hired cultic performer received the whole prebendary income before giving a part of it to the owner of the share. 25 See for instance BAKER 2004 : 42-45 for the Neo-Babylonian Nappāhu archive and CORÒ 2005 : 119-134 for Hellenistic Uruk. For an overview of the various revenues of the prebend-holders, see WAERZEGGERS 2010 : 301-326. 26 See, however, JURSA et alii 2010 : 165-168. 27 When applied to cuneiform documentation, the Neo-Babylonian period exceeds the actual era of the homonymous empire (626-539 B.C.) and usually designates a « long sixth century », between the end of the Neo-Assyrian period (second half of the seventh century B.C.) and the Babylonian revolts against Xerxes (484 B.C.), after which several archives suddenly come to an end. For a general presentation of the prebendary system in this period, see VAN DRIEL 2002 : 67-97 and recently JURSA et alii 2010 : 155-168. 28 These links are clearly visible for this period from the correspondance between the names of some families and the nature of their main prebendary service, like e.g. the Gallābu (« barber ») family at Ur or the Rē'i Alpi (« oxherd ») at Borsippa. Other families specialized in one type of prebendary service, though, did not bear names corresponding to their occupation, like e.g. the Šigûa family, who was the main brewer family of Uruk. 29 Such links only remain visible in Hellenistic Uruk for the upper and lower margins of the isqu-system, as can be seen from the exorcists (āšipu) of the Ekur-zakir clan and the lamentation-priests (kalû) of the Sin-leqe-unninni clan on the one hand, and the family of the master builders (itinnu), studied by H. Baker (2005), on the other. 30 See for instance the Ṣāhit-ginê or the Šangû-Šamaš families from Sippar, or the Nappāhu family from Babylon (cf JURSA et alii 2010 : 160). become the norm in the Late-Babylonian period31. Even women could then buy and sell prebends32, while they were only able to passively inherit them by dowry in the sixth century B.C. 33. All these evolutions point to a progressive loosening of the bonds between the owning of a prebend share and the actual performance of cultic service between the Neo- and the Late-Babylonian period34: the prebend holders who were not willing or able to perform the service attached to their prebend share could then hire a substitute among the authorized cultic personnel, who took care of the prebendary duties on his behalf in exchange for a share in the income35. Such disconnection between the owning of a prebend share and the performance of the cultic duties also implied an easier alienability of one's entitlement, either by patrimonial division or by sale. This phenomenon led to an acceleration of the fragmentation of the prebend shares, that became extremely small in the course of the Hellenistic period36. The origins of these evolutions are difficult to identify. The aftermath of the Babylonian revolts against Xerxes in 484 B.C.37, as well as the installation of the Graeco-Macedonian rule in Babylonia a century and a half later, may have played their part in the process, but it remains impossible to estimate their importance in comparison to some hypothetical endogenous factors, about which we know virtually nothing. The reason for this is the scarcity of the documentation concerning the prebendary system in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., that considerably impedes our understanding of the evolution of the system. In the absence of such documentation, some scholars have interpreted the sharp contrast between the Neo- and the Late-Babylonian periods as a

31 See e.g. the dossier of Labaši, son of Anu-zer-iddin, of the Ekur-zakir clan (cf. CORÒ 2005 : 87-94) or the family archive of Dannat-Beltu, son of Libluṭ, of the Luštammar-Adad clan (cf. DOTY 1977 : 231-270). 32 See for instance the dossier of Belessunu, daughter of Anu-ab-uṣur, granddaughter of Nidintu-Anu, of the Hunzu clan and linked by marriage to the family of Labaši (cf. CORÒ 2005 : 99-100). 33 As C. Waerzeggers noticed, « the increased emancipation of women in prebendary affairs is one of the most striking differences in the prebendary system » between the Neo- and the Late-Babylonian periods (2010 : 93). That does not mean, however, that these women actually performed any cultic activity, since the actual service remained subject to strong ritual purity restrictions that excluded de facto any woman from priesthood. 34 If M. Jursa et alii (2010 : 155) and C. Waerzeggers (2010 : 51-55) both stress the fact that the only entitlement to a prebend share was not sufficient to be authorized to perform cultic activities in the Neo-Babylonian period either, the custom of owning a prebend without performing service seems to have been much more spread in the Late- Babylonian period. 35 We have a dozen of these service contracts for the Hellenistic period. They concern prebends of baker and miller (OECT 9 62), brewer (OECT 9 09 and CORÒ 2005-BM 105191), butcher (TCL 13 238, OECT 9 36, OECT 9 37, BRM 2 47 and VDI 1955/4 08) and even, in some instances, combined types of prebend (brewer, cook and butcher in OECT 9 16 and « temple-enterer » and butcher in CORÒ 2005-BM 116692). YOS 20 70, also a service contract, remains too fragmentary to determine the nature of the prebend. Moreover, it is worth noting that one of these documents can also be found among the few Hellenistic tablets found in Nippur, in Central Babylonia: it is dated to 152 B.C., and deals with the performance of a prebendary service of baker (VAN DER SPEK 1992 txt 2). This document confirms the fact that this Late-Babylonian evolution of the isqu-system was not specific to the city of Uruk, but stood for other cities as well. 36 See e.g. BRM 2 19, a sale of 13 hrs 36 mn per year (1/20th minus 1/360th of a day per month) of « temple-enterer » th service in front of Enlil and other gods in 241 B.C., CORÒ 2005-BM 105196, a sale of 4 hrs 48 mn per year (1/60 of a day per month) of the same service in 197 B.C., or BiMes 24 10, a sale of 14 hrs 48 mn per year (1/20 th plus 1/720th of a day per month) of brewer service in 171-170 B.C. The shares seem to have been sometimes so fragmented that the scribes used a special way to describe it, expressing them in terms of capacity measures. OECT 9 30 // 31, for instance, summarizes the sale of 23 hrs 12 mn of yearly brewer service (expressed as 1/15th + 1/360th + 1/90th of a day of monthly service) as equivalent to 194,5 Babylonian litres. OECT 9 36, a service agreement about 2 days and 20 hrs of yearly butcher service (expressed as 1/6th + 1/15th + 1/360th of a day of monthly service), indicates 402,5 Babylonian liters as equivalent. OECT 9 61 (o. 4-5), a sale of 4 days and 4 hrs (?) of yearly brewer service (expressed as 1/18th + 1/8th +? 1/60th of a day of monthly service) is said to be equivalent to 189+x Babylonian liters. Nevertheless, the complexity of the fraction of service does not seem to have been the only factor at stake, since hte last known attestion of this notational system, OECT 9 62, is a service agreement concerning fours days of yearly miller and baker service (expressed as 1/3 of a day of monthly service), expressed as equivalent to 240 Babylonian liters. One cannot discard the possibility that it expressed a quantity of (unspecified) staple commodities needed for the service. One the whole, however, I confess I remain puzzled by this way of expressing equivalents of time where the scribes usually wrote a simpler fraction to express a total amount (see COCQUERILLAT 1965). These occurrences are, to my knowledge, the only ones of such a system. 37 On these revolts and their impact on the temple archives, see WAERZEGGERS 2003/2004. proof of the inexorable state of decay of the prebendary system in the Hellenistic period38. Although the differences between the two periods are obvious, the verdict of decay does not appear to be tenable any longer. I see five arguments against this interpretation. First of all, the long-term evolution of the prebendary system needs a thorough reassessment, since one cannot rule out the possibility that the overall impression of contrast partly lies on the Late-Achaemenid « blind spot » of the documentation. And as a matter of fact, the information provided by the rare documents dating from the fourth century B.C. seem to plead in favour of a certain continuity in the system39.

Secondly, the overall impression of fragmentation of the shares of cultic service between the two periods, which is one of the main arguments advanced by the supporters of the theory of an Hellenistic decay of the system, must be strongly mitigated by the fact that the Neo-Babylonian contracts do not calculate the shares of cultic service on the same basis as their Late-Babylonian counterparts: the former calculate the amount of time on a yearly basis, while the basic scale used by the latter is the month40. In other words, while a Neo-Babylonian contract would describe a prebend share as « one day, on the nth day of month MN, of the prebend X »41, a Late-Babylonian contract would describe the same share as « one twelfth of a day, on the nth and nth days, his prebend X, each month, the whole year »42. The reasons for such a change in the notation of cultic service remain difficult to understand43. Nevertheless, even if the process of fragmentation remains important in the Late-Babylonian period, the bias implied by the ignorance of this change is obvious, and can lead to distorted conclusions on the evolutions of the isqu-system44.

38 See for instance B. Funck, who concludes about the Urukean prebendary system in this period: « Da wir die Pfründe ohne weiteres einer Magistratur gleichsetzen dürfen und für diese Zeit den Ämterhandel konstatiert haben, müssen wir von einer Gesellschaft ausgehen, die sich im Stadium des Niederganges befunden hat. » (1984 : 274). Behind this statement lie, in my opinion, two prejudices. The first is « classical » and relies on the idea, strongly influenced by the Roman historiography, that the Hellenistic realms were decaying from the very beginning of their history. The second is « assyriological », and conveys the still well-spread idea that the Sumero-Akkadian culture slowly began to vegetate and die after the end of the independance of Babylonia, in 539 B.C. 39 The earliest « prebendary » archives of the Late-Babylonian period are the Iqiša archive from Uruk (cf. CLANCIER 2009 : 47-72), the Šamaš-iddin archive from Larsa (cf. JOANNÈS 2001) and the « brewers archive » from Borsippa (cf. MONERIE forthcoming a)). All of them are dated to the end of the fourth century, during the transitional phase between the Achaemenid and Graeco-Macedonian rule, and they all concern the activities of prebendary brewers. The first two provide some elements of continuity with the Neo-Babylonian period, since they include brewing contracts, following a practice well-attested in the Neo-Babylonian period (see e.g. WAERZEGGERS 2010 : 174-177), while the latter confirm the Achaemenid origin (as soon as the the 350's B.C.) of the bēl mindu (« paymaster »), a temple-official, well-attested in the Hellenistic period (see e.g. JURSA 2006), who was in charge of running the accounts for one type of prebend-holders. 40 I would like to thank Reinhard Pirngruber for having drawn my attention to this problem. Following his methodological precautions, I have converted all the datas on a yearly basis, in order to put them on a comparable stance with the Neo-Babylonian datas (cf. PIRNGRUBER / WAERZEGGERS Prebend Prices). 41 See e.g. WAERZEGGERS 2010 txt. 172. 42 See e.g. OECT 9 23. It is interesting to note that the Hellenistic prebend texts from Nippur (VAN DER SPEK 1992 txt. 1 and 2) display a similar phrasing. The practice was not, then, limited to the city of Uruk. 43 It may simply be due to an evolution in the accounting practices. As far as service was concerned, it seems fairly probable that the rosters continued to be organised on a yearly basis: the contrary would have implied major impediments in the continuity of the cultic duties, since twelve (or more) different persons would have had to take turns every hour or so each day. A yearly basis, on the contrary, would imply that our owner of a (monthly) twelfth of a day share would simply have had to execute one day (or two half-days) of service each year. The income, on the contrary, could have been organized on a monthly basis: the owner would then have received the income of one twelfth of a day each month, from the prebendary incomes of the days mentioned in the contracts. Interestingly, a similar practice of accounting of the service can be found as soon as the Neo-Babylonian period among the prebendary bakers of the Ezida, in Borsippa (WAERZEGGERS 2010 : 201-204). If this interpretation of is right, and if the service was actually still performed on a yearly basis while the income attached to it was given monthly, this evolution would fit quite well in the overall frame of the disconnection between prebendary service and income mentionned above. 44 See for instance KESSLER 1991 : 73, where the misinterpretation of the data leads the author to conclude that the Late-Babylonian prebend prices were more than ten times superior to the Neo-Babylonian ones. Thirdly, even if the loosening of the bonds between service and income in the Late- Babylonian period obviously opened the prebend-holding to a greater number of individuals45, this does not mean, as implies the hypothesis of the decay, that any businessman coming to Uruk could buy himself a prebendary income, provided he could find a substitute to perform the cultic duties on his behalf. On the contrary, the documentation clearly shows that the prebend owners were, as before, almost only members of the local priestly families (claiming descent from one of the illustrious ancestors whose « clans » structured the priestly community) and when it was not the case, only to individuals strongly tied to the institution of the sanctuary46. As a result, the possibility of hiring a substitute for performing the cultic duties almost only benefited to the priests already exercising other prebendary professions. With this evolution, that seems to have taken place at different times from temple to temple47, the priests could now acquire entitlements to new types of prebends, conclude service agreements with colleagues specialized in these occupations, and perceive additional incomes while continuing to perform their original cultic occupation48. In other words, the outer borders of the system did not open: only the inner ones, between the prebendary activities, did so, and the fragmentation of the prebend shares, which implied an increased number of owners for each type of prebendary service, do not mean that the size of the whole priestly community increased. The only exception to this trend, as we have seen, is the opening of the prebendary affairs to women. But here again, this new ability to freely buy and sell prebend shares49 did not benefit to everybody, and only women pertaining to a well-established priestly family and married to members of the priestly community could be granted access to prebend-holding50. We

45 The legal documentation actually bears traces of this opening in the designation of the « co-owners » of the prebend involved, i.e. the owners of the other shares pertaining to the same roster of cultic service: from ca. 260 B.C. onwards, the usual individual designation of some of the (main ?) co-owners is replaced by the collective formulae bēlī zittišu (« his co-owners ») or ahhēšu u bēlī zittišu (« his brothers and his co-owners », cf. CORÒ 2005 : 73-78), together with the name of the buyer (or the seller), if he already (or still) owned such a share. This evolution suggests an increase of the number of individuals entitled to each prebend type, correlating the idea of an increased fragmentation of the shares. 46 The most remarkable example is the small dossier of the gatekeepers Dumqi-Anu (son of Arad-Bit-Reš, grand-son of Dumqi-Anu) and his son Idat-Anu, both attested as owners of butcher's prebend shares in the middle of the second century B.C. None of them seem to have claimed descent from any famous ancestor, but Idat-Anu was gatekeeper of the Treasure House of Anu (atû ša bīt makkur Anu), doubtlessly an office with high responsibilities, and both were members of the Assembly of the Bīt-Rēš (kiništu ša Bīt-Rēš). Interestingly, though, the dossier (especially BRM 2 47 and VDI 1955/4 08) strongly suggest that both of them hired well-established priests to perform the cultic service attached to their prebend shares (cf. CORÒ 2005 : 97-98). It remains difficult to determine whether Idat-Anu and his father were members of the kiništu of the sanctuary because they owned prebend shares or if, on the contrary, it is their seat at the Assembly that permitted them to buy such shares without claiming any clan affiliation. 47 This evolution seems to have taken place, as we have seen, as soon as the Neo-Babylonian period in the Ebabbar of Sippar and the Esagil of Babylon. On the contrary, in the Ezida of Borsippa and the Eanna of Uruk, where « the original nexus between ownership of a prebend and actual service was (still) stronger » (JURSA et alii 2010 : 161) in the Neo-Babylonian period, the multi-prebend holding did not appear before the fifth or the fourth century B.C. When the documentation reappears, at the end of the fourth century B.C., the phenomenon is attested both in the Ezida (cf. MONERIE forthcoming a)) and in the Urukean temples of the Bīt-Rēš and the Irigal, that had replaced the Eanna as prominent sanctuaries of the city in the course of the Achaemenid period. 48 The prebendal affairs of the butcher Kidin-Anu (son of Anu-ahhe-iddin, grandson of Nanaya-iddin, of the Hunzu clan) give us a good viewpoint on how the system could function: his dossier shows that he acquired, between 239 and 215 B.C., both shares of butcher prebend (OECT 9 21 and 32), and other types of prebends, such as baker (OECT 9 28 and 64), brewer (OECT 9 19, 23, 30 // 31 and 34 // 35), and even « temple-enterer » (OECT 9 25). Unfortunately, no service contract showing Kidin-Anu hiring somebody in order to perform these latter types have survived. Two tablets (OECT 9 36 and 37), however, show that Kidin-Anu was himself hired by colleagues owning butcher shares in order to perform the cultic duties on their behalf (cf. CORÒ 2005 : 95-97). 49 Although a woman was legally able to possess a prebend share in the Neo-Babylonian period, she could only passively receive it by dowry, in absence of any male heir, and was not entitled to alienate it freely. Female prebend- owning was then a sign of patrimonial crisis, and cannot then be compared to the situation prevailing in the Late- Babylonian period (cf. WAERZEGGERS 2010 : 92-94). 50 See for instance Etirṭu, daughter of Anu-ab-uṣur of the Hunzu clan and wife of Labaši (son of Anu-zer-iddin of the Ekur-zakir clan), who bought a share of exorcist prebend in 216 B.C. (YOS 20 84). The case of the Greek Antiochis, daughter of Diophantos, who bought several prebend shares in the 190's B.C. (YOS 20 54, BiMes 24 06 // VS 15 07), can therefore assume that, in Late-Babylonian Uruk just like in Neo-Babylonian Borsippa, « the circle of eligible people ended at the temple gate. No outsiders gained entry, except if they were affiliated to another temple » (WAERZEGGERS 2010 : 98). Moreover, the fragmentation process was strongly balanced by the accumulation strategies, that led some prebend-holders to purchase new shares of a type they already owned51. On the contrary, the sale of only a part of one's prebend share seems to have occurred much more rarely52. This accumulative process seems to have been determined to some extant by the trend of prices of the prebends (see Appendix 2). As a result of this process, the shares of service were artificially re- formed into the hands of a small number of prebend-holders, who could either perform the service themselves (if they were entitled to) or hire a specialist to do it. Finally, the loosening of the ties between the owning of a share and the performing of its cultic duties do not necessarily imply that the temple administration ceased to exert control over the performance of the cultic duties. On the contrary, the study of the service agreements suggest that the fines against careless performers got harder over time, along with a closer surveillance of the process by the cultic authorities53. Moreover, the possibility that the temple-administration supervised to some extant the choice of the substitutes hired by the prebend-owners to carry out their cultic duties cannot be discarded54. If that assumption is true, the action of the cultic authorities must have considerably smoothed the negative effects of the fragmentation process on the cultic service. It is of course not the point here to deny the importance of the loosening of the links between prebend-holding and cultic performance in the Late-Babylonian period. The whole documentation of the period strongly demonstrate the extent of the phenomenon within the isqu- system. The process, though, must be reassessed in a long-term perspective, and its practical consequences must be carefully studied. The (more or less explicitly expressed in the scholarly literature) idea of a decay of the system, lying behind the picture of a growing carelessness of the priestly community for the cultic service, appears to be misleading, in my opinion, for the comprehension of the end of the Sumero-Akkadian civilization. That is not to say, of course, that the economic importance of the Babylonian temples did not decrease in the course of the First

but was not member of a local priestly family, must be considered as an exception, since her husband, Anu- uballiṭ/Kephalôn (son of Anu-balassu-iqbi of the Ah'utu clan), was the rab ša rēš āli of Uruk, doubtlessly one of the most powerful men in the city at that time (cf. MONERIE forthcoming c) « Antiochis »). All the other female prebend- holders, on the contrary, seem to have been both daughters and spouses of well-established priests. 51 See CORÒ 2005 : 86-100. This was actually the case of every transaction for which the buyer is mentioned among the co-owners of the prebend share (bēlī zittišu), i.e. approximately one-fourth of the documentation. 52 The appearance of the seller (or a member of his family) among the co-owners, which meant that the share was actually fragmented as a result of the transaction, is only attested in six contracts (approximately 5 % of the corpus). In two of these transactions (OECT 9 61 and CORÒ 2005 : BM 105197 // 109960), the seller appears together with the buyer among the co-owners, which means that the share was not actually fragmented, but simply changed hands inside the prebend roster. The relative scarcity of these attestations strongly suggests that the selling of one's share played a minor part in the fragmentation process, that must have been mainly driven by patrimonial divisions. 53 From the second quarter of the second century B.C. onwards, the fine clauses against substitutes who would not perform their service properly seem to harden, and involve the temple authorities, besides the owner. The oldest agreement presenting such clauses is CORÒ 2005 : BM 116692, dating 166 B.C. (the fragmentary TCL 13 238, dating 246 B.C., may be an early precedent). The causes and modalities of these evolutions will need further investigation to be fully understood. 54 The ritual purity of the substitute was a concern of paramount importance for the cultic authorities, who could refuse access to any person they considered unfit to perform cultic service. Moreover, the very identity of the substitute chosen by the prebend-owner may have been supervised by the temple-administration. The dossier of the butcher Kidin-Anu (cf. supra) could imply such a situation, since the service agreements OECT 9 36 and 37, both dated to summer 215 B.C., record the hiring of Kidin-Anu by two different individuals to perform their cultic duties, on days for which Kidin-Anu himself already owned prebend shares (OECT 9 21). If the cultic authorities interfered at any rate in the choice of Kidin-Anu for substitute (which is not absolutely certain), this would imply that the temple- administration was perfectly able to organize consistent cultic-rosters over the year despite the fragmentation of the prebend entitlements. Millenium B.C.55 or within the Late-Babylonian period itself56. Nevertheless, the Babylonian sanctuaries remained, even in the Hellenistic Period, very important structures57, and their whole economy was still strongly driven by the necessity of ensuring the sustenance of the gods.

Let us now turn to the price of these prebends. The sale documents from Hellenistic Uruk provide both detailed and consistent information on prices. The precise description of the size of the share of cultic service sold, associated with the amount of silver due in exchange and the indication of the date of the transaction58 allows us to carry out a diachronical comparative study. We will then consider first the general data of each generic type of service before turning to the study of the evolution of their prices. The most important type of service, as we have seen, seems to have been the prebends involving the actual performance of rites before the cultic statues, and above all the presentation of offerings. All these services, however, had neither the same ritual importance nor the same economic value. The cultic prominence of the temples (and the deities) associated to the ritual offerings seem to have played a significant part in the price of the prebend share, as can be seen from Table 1a (below). The ritual service in the cella of Anu and Antu in the temple of Bīt-Rēš, for instance, was more than four times worth the service in the countryside temple of Edursaggani, and almost twenty-seven times worth the service in the secondary cultic station of the Gate of Anu, between the temples of Irigal and Bīt-Rēš59.

55 The size of the cultic personnel of the sanctuaries might provide some hints to this evolution. It remains virtually impossible to estimate it directly on the basis of the sole Late-Babylonian documentation. Interestingly, though, the cultic service seems to have been less specialized in this period than in the Neo-Babylonian period, as can be seen from the number of cultic statues « in front of which » (ina pāni) the cultic service attached to one prebend share had to be done: while, in the Neo-Baylonian Eanna of Uruk, each prebend was attached to the cultic service of a single god (see e.g. BaM 5 6, a sale of a baker prebend in front of Ištar of Uruk from 631 B.C.), the service of the Bīt-Rēš and Irigal prebends, in the Hellenistic period, was attached to a whole set of cultic statues (e.g. OECT 9 15, a sale of a baker prebend in front of Anu, Antu, Ištar, Nanaya, Belēt-ša-rēš and all the gods of their temples, in 239 B.C.). This decrease in the specialization of the cultic duties could imply that the cultic personnel of the main sanctuaries of Uruk was less numerous in the Late-Babylonian period. 56 Another hint to this situation might be found in the evolution of the term of service agreements, which seem to have increased from 3-5 years in the first half of the third century B.C. (e.g. OECT 9 09, TCL 13 238) to 8-10 years in the second half of the third and the first half of the second centuries B.C. (e.g. OECT 9 37 and 62) and to 20 years by the end of the period of Seleucid rule (e.g. VDI 1955/4 08). If we admit the hypothesis that the term of the service contract was the result of a free agreement between the owner and the performer, and that the cultic-authorities played no part in it (which is not absolutely certain, though), such an increase could have implied that the group of cultic performers that the prebend-owners could hire was less numerous, occasions to change from one performer to another less frequent, and that consequently both owners and performers favoured long-term service agreements. 57 The (undated) Hellenistic tablet BaM beih. 2 115, found in the library of the lamentation-priests (kalû) in the Bīt-Rēš sanctuary (cf. CLANCIER 2009 : 73-80) record at least fifteen different lamentation-priests working for the temple at the same time. Such an amount imply that On the size of the Esagil of Babylon in the Hellenistic Period, see VAN DER SPEK 2006. 58 Some of the tablets are broken were the date is indicated. However, a thorough study of the corpus allows us to propose a rather precise dating of the transaction, based on prosopographical, legal and practical grounds. These are indicated by a « ~ » sign before the likely date. 59 No doubt the status of ērib bīti, that allowed its holder to enter the most sacred area of the temple, added considerable value to the prebend share. The precision of the status, however, remains sometimes unclear: did the service in secondary temples such as the Edursaggani or the Egalmah automatically implied an ērib bīti, without further need of specification ? Minimum Maximum Average Number of price price price Occupation occurences (in shekels per (in shekels per (in shekels per day of yearly day of yearly day of yearly service) service) service) Temple-enterer (ērib bīti) service in front of Anu, Antu, Ištar, Belēt-ṣēri and the all gods of their 06 22,00 68,80 37,22 temples. Temple-enterer (ērib bīti) service in front of Enlil, Ea, Sîn, Šamaš, Adad, Marduk, Nanaya, Belēt-ša- 11 08,00 32,50 21,09 Rēš and the all gods of their temples. Service in the temple Edursaggani, located in the hallatu-orchard, in front of Belēt-ṣeri and all the 08 05,00 12,50 07,61 gods of her temple. Temple-enterer (ērib bīti) service in front of Anu, Antu, Enlil, Ea, Šamaš, Adad, Papsukkal, Ištar, 01 03,33 03,33 03,33 Belēt-ṣēri, Nanaya, Belēt-ša-Rēš, Šarrahitu and the all gods of their temples (dated to 156 B.C.). Service in the Great Dais (parakku rabû) of the Gate 01 01,38 01,38 01,38 of Anu of the Irigal and the Bīt-Rēš. Temple-enterer (ērib bīti) service in front of in front of Papsukkal, Amasagnudi and all the gods of their 02 00,33 00,40 00,37 temples60. Temple-enterer (ērib bīti) service of the celestial 02 ND ND ND gods61. Service in the temple Egalmah, which is incorporated to the Eanna temple (ša itti Eanna 03 ND ND ND ṭepû), in front of Belēt-balāṭi (i.e. Gula) and all the gods of her temple62.

Table 1a : Price of the ritual « offering presentation » prebends in Hellenistic Uruk

All of the prebendary « ritualists », however, were not directly involved in cultic meal ceremonies. Some of them provided more specific services, on other cultic occasions, like the exorcists, the lamentation-priests or the goldsmiths in charge of the cultic implements. Interestingly, the basic organization of their service seems to have differed from the other prebendary service:

60 The two documents (BRM 2 29 and TCL 13 242), both dating to ca. 214 B.C., precise that this prebend of temple- enterer is associated with a prebend of butcher and an income of sacrificial meat portions of sheep, that all pertain to the obligations attached to the possession of a « bow-land » (bīt qašti) in the surroundigns of the Great Gate of Adad. These are the only documents mentioning an explicit link between the usufruct of a land and prebendary obligations. Interestingly, the system of the « bow-land » service, that dates back to Darius I (522-486 B.C.), also appears to have been applied to the prebendary butchers in the Early-Achaemenid documentation from Borsippa (see JURSA / WAERZEGGERS 2009 : 255-257). 61 This kind of service is only attested by two documents, Oppert 2 and 4. One of them is too fragmentary. Oppert 2, however, provide valuable information on this rarely documented type of prebend: the document is dated to 244 B.C., and records the sale of 1/36th of the prebend, along with various food allowances, for 4 shekels of silver. Although it remains impossible, in the present state of the documentation, to determine with certainty the nature of the service, the denomination of the service (ērib bītûtu ša ilāni ša šamê « temple-enterer of the celestial god ») could indicate that the service took place in the ziggurat of Anu, following a practice that is well-attested for the Neo-Babylonian period. 62 This kind of service is attested by three documents, CORÒ 2005-BM 105188, BRM 2 36 and Oppert 5, dated respectively to the reigns of Antiochus III (222-187 B.C.), Seleucus IV (181 B.C.) and Demetrius I (161-151 B.C.). Unfortunately, all these transactions concern various kinds of prebends and property, and do not provide sufficent data to estimate the value of the prebendary service of the goddess. their sale contracts express the amounts of service sold in fractions of the whole prebend instead of specific days of service. This situation may have been due to the fact that the service of these « ritualists » was not connected to the cultic meal ceremonies (ginû, guqqû and eššēšu-offerings), as were the « standard » ērib bīti and the « purveying trades », but to other specific ceremonies, that implied a different service calendar, and then a different organisation of their duty-rosters63. In this respect, the case of the goldsmiths of the cultic implements (ērib bīt pirištu u kutīmu) is revealing, since a significant part of their income seems to have been derived from the implements used and the offerings made during the clothing ceremonies of the gods (lubuštu), in which they played a prominent part64. These professions required, as one can easily imagine, a firm expertise in the field of Sumero-Akkadian knowledge, and the stark differences in the prices of the prebends (an exorcist's prebend share was more than seventeen times more expensive than a singer's) may have been influence by the degree of these skill requirements. Similarly, it is certainly not by chance that these prebend types were among the last on which specific families exercised a monopoly: the exorcist profession was exercised only by members of the Ekur-zakir clan, while the lamentation-priests were all members of the Sin-leqe-unnini clan.

Number Minimum Maximum Average Occupation of price price price (in shekels for the (in shekels for the (in shekels for the occurences whole prebend) whole prebend) whole prebend) Exorcist 06 560 2142 890,33 Goldsmith in charge of the cultic 11 240 600 460,80 implements (ērib bīt pirištu u kutīmu) Singer 01 50 50 50,00 Lamentation-priest65 01 ND ND ND

Table 1b : Price of the specialized « ritualist » prebends in Hellenistic Uruk

The analysis of the « purveying trades », who were in charge of participating to the preparation of the daily cultic meals before entrusting it to the ērib bīti, is much less problematic. The organization of the prebendary service is well-known and does not seem to have known any fundamental change between the Neo- and the Late-Babylonian periods. The minor trades (oil- presser, date-palm gardener) remained well below the three most valued occupations, which were, as in the Neo-Babylonian period, the brewer, baker and butcher prebends. Worth noticing, however, is the rising importance of the butcher's prebend: being the less valued of the three during the sixth century B.C., it appears to have become the most valuable purveying trade during the third century, before being overtaken in the following century by the brewer's prebend, which regained the prominent position it had occupied during the Neo-Babylonian period (cf. figure 1).

63 Other prebends appear to have been organized according to a « fractional » system, with a possible link to specific cultic ceremonies. YOS 20 30, dating to 247 B.C., is a sale of 1/84th of a prebend in the sheep offerings of the travel provisions of the gods (ṣidīt ilāni, to be linked to the transportation of the cultic statues during the akîtu festivals ?) for 1,5 shekels. Oppert 2 is more problematic, since it seems to concern, if our interpretation is correct, a prebend of ērib bīti in the Anu ziggurat. Nothing allows us to declare with certainty, though, that the cultic service in the ziggurat was organized on the same basis as in the temples. *BM 109959, finally, is too fragmentary to be studied. 64 On these ceremonies, see LINSSEN 2004 : 51-56. 65 The tablet (BiMes 24 47), a quitclaim, do not provide any information on the value of the share. It is only mentioned here for the proof it provides that the lamentation-priest was actually a prebendary profession. Number of Minimum price Maximum price Average price Occupation (in shekels per day (in shekels per day of (in shekels per day of occurences of yearly service) yearly service) yearly service) Butcher 16 02,83 41,79 21,97 Brewer 16 04,17 50,00 19,24 Baker 07 05,00 31,00 ? 11,52 Oil-presser 03 00,81 01,00 00,88 Date-palm gardener 01 00,67 00,67 00,67

Table 2 : Price of the « purveying trade » prebends in Hellenistic Uruk

Finally, the « auxiliary » professions provide an expected pattern, in which the occupations of cultic-assistants (temple-attendants, arrangers of sacrificial tables) are more valued than the « secular » occupations (gatekeeper), following the general principle, already noticed, of a growing importance (and value) of the prebends as their holder got closer to the actual performance of the cultic rites.

Minimum Maximum Average price Number of Occupation price price (in shekels per occurences (in shekels per day (in shekels per day day of yearly of yearly service) of yearly service) service) Temple-attendant 09 01,88 06,67 03,43 Arranger of the sacrificial tables 01 03,33 03,33 03,33 Overseer-gatekeeper 01 00,40 00,40 00,40 Gatekeeper 02 00,25 00,33 00,29

Table 3 : Price of the « auxiliary » prebends in Hellenistic Uruk

The wide range of the prices presented above have nothing to surprise. The gradual loosening of the ties between the entitlement to a prebend share and the performance of the cultic duties, which resulted in a growing alienability of the prebend shares in the course of the First Millenium B.C., must have driven the exchange of these shares of service, especially for the most expensive prebend types. Unsurprisingly, these most expensive types were also the most fragmented ones, as can be seen from table 4 (below). It appears, as we have already seen, that the sale of shares played a minor part in the fragmentation process: the sellers hardly divided their prebend shares by giving up only a part of it. Most of the time, they sold their whole share, which did not increase the fragmention process. Moreover, when they sold it to somebody who already owned a similar share, the result was, on the contrary, a recomposition of the cultic service. If the commercial transactions did not play a prominent role in the fragmentation process, then the patrimonial division by inheritance must have been the principal factor. Although the Late-Babylonian documentation is far more sketchy than the Neo-Babylonian on the subject66, one can easily imagine that a father would have been more reluctant to bestow his most valuable prebend shares to only one of his heirs rather than dividing it between his children, while he would have given more easily the less valued prebend shares to one of his children, compensating the other heirs by the gift of other types of properties.

66 The only two documents directly attesting the alienation of prebend entitlements by inheritance are BRM 2 24 (dated to 239 B.C.) and OECT 9 63 (dated to 149 B.C.). The former, however, deals with a master-builder's prebend which, as we have seen, was only partially part of the isqu system, while the latter is too fragmentary to be studied. Maximum Minimum Average Average Number amount amount amount price Occupation of (in days of (in days of (in days of (in shekels per occurences yearly yearly yearly day of yearly service) service) service) service) Temple-enterer in front of Anu, Antu et alii. 06 03,00 00,20 01,41 37,22 Butcher 16 12,00 00,67 02,43 21,97 Temple-enterer in front of Enlil, Ea et alii. 11 04,80 00,60 02,00 21,09 Brewer 16 06,00 00,47 02,45 19,24 Baker 07 04,00 00,87 01,89 11,52 Service in the temple Edursaggani 08 06,40 02,00 03,55 07,61 Temple-attendant 09 07,33 01,00 03,54 03,43 Arranger of sacrificial tables 01 06,00 06,00 06,00 03,33 Service in the Great Dais of the Gate of Anu 01 04,00 04,00 04,00 01,38 Oil-presser 03 12,00 06,00 08,89 00,88 Date-palm Gardener 01 12,00 12,00 12,00 00,67 Overseer Gatekeeper 01 20,00 20,00 20,00 00,40 Gatekeeper 01 03,00 03,00 03,00 00,33

Table 4 : Fragmentation range of the prebends exchanged in Hellenistic Uruk

One must not think, however, that the prices of the prebend shares were only the result of the free meeting of supply and demand. The price ranges remained wide even within a given year, and the transactions seem to have been influenced by the personal situation of the principals, as they were in the Neo-Babylonian period67. Although the Late-Babylonian corpus remains for the most part less explicit about the circumstances of the sale68, some documents seem to bear traces of elements that could have influenced the conditions of the transaction, such as related principals 69, special arrangements between related families70 or interventions of the cultic authorities in the transaction71.

67 C. Waerzeggers notes, for instance, that the prebend prices « could easily be doubled or halved depending on particular circumstances. These circumstances were not at all exceptional: childlessness, illness, inheritance divisions, litigations, sale by proxy; all these situations affected the negotiation process. » (2010 : 316). 68 Some prices are obviously much higher or lower than others without showing any decisive reason for it. One good example is the tablet OECT 9 28, dating from ~ 222-215 B.C., and recording the sale of a baker prebend at the price of at least 31 shekels of silver per yearly day of service (the price is not completely legible), while other sales of the same prebend type during the same period record prices of 7 (OECT 9 64, dating from ~ 234-222 B.C.) and 7,5 shekels (VDI 1955/4 07, dated to 213 B.C.). No apparent reason can be found in the known circumstances of the transaction for such a high price. 69 See for instance BRM 2 08, dated to 276 B.C.: a sale of two days of yearly brewer service by a certain Anu-ahhe- iddin (son of Anu-uballiṭ, of the Sin-leqe-unnini clan) to his wife, Dannatu (daughter of Anu-ahhe-iddin, grand- daughter of Iqišaia) at the price of 6,5 shekels per day, whereas similar transactions of the same period all display a price of 10 shekels per day (OECT 9 08 and 65, CORÒ 2005 - BM 109957 and 109968). 70 See e.g. OECT 9 50, dating from 187-186 B.C., the principals are members of related families. The transaction is quite peculiar, since it is phrased in a donation form: the price, 10 shekels for a share of 1/24 a prebend of goldsmith in charge of the cultic implements, is half the usual price, and seems to be only a gift in exchange for the prebend. On the context of this transaction, see DOTY 1977 : 304-305. The habit of phrasing a transaction in donation form, that was quite well-spread during the Neo-Babylonian period, seems to have been much more rare in the Late- Babylonian period (cf. JURSA 1999 : 42-43). 71 The best examples of intervention of the cultic authorities in transactions are the sales of food allowances decided by the sanctuary because the former owner did not perform the corresponding service. See e.g. BRM 2 33, BRM 2 56 (= YOS 20 71) and YOS 20 92. The prices of these transactions, however, are themselves quite diverse, and we lack However, these features of « embeddedness », to use a Polanyian concept, must not hide the fact that the supply and demand seem to have played a greater part in the Late-Babylonian transactions, in the already noted context of loosening of the ties between pebendary service and income72. As a matter of fact, the study of the price evolution of the Urukean prebends present very clear trends, that cannot be attributed to mere chance, and discards the idea of a completely embedded system.

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Time (BC)

Figure 1 : Prices of the prebend shares in Hellenistic Uruk

Despite its approximations due to the nature of the corpus73, this figure clearly shows a general trend for the prebendary prices in Hellenistic Uruk. The first quarter of the third century B.C. was clearly a period of low but increasing prices. By the middle of the century

points of comparison to estimate the impact of the authorities on the price of the sales. The conditions of interference of the temple authorities in the transfer of prebend entitlements are even more difficult to establish. 72 The sex of the principals, for instance, do not seem to have influenced the establishment of the sale prices anymore. See for instance OECT 9 15, dated to 239 B.C., a sale of 2,33 days of yearly baker service to a certain E ṭirtu, (daughter of Anu-uballiṭ) at a price (8,58 shekels a day) very similar to the other transactions of the period (cf. CORÒ 2005 – BM 109965 and OECT 9 64), or RIAA² 294, a sale of one day of yearly service of temple-enterer before Enlil, Ea et alii to a woman called Belessunu (daughter of Anu-ab-uṣur, grand-daughter of Nidintu-Anu, of the Hunzu clan), dated to 204 B.C. The price, 8 shekels, is the same as YOS 20 59, dated to the same period. On the contrary, the (rare) occurrences of Neo-Babylonian prebend sales to women suggest that the sellers could then ask for higher prices, since women only bought prebends in contexts of personal or familial crisis (see e.g. WAERZEGGERS 2010 txt 143). The later evolutions and the full access granted for women to prebend entitlements seem to have smoothed these situations. 73 The distribution of the data for each prebend type strongly influences the general aspect of each curve: some periods are only documented by one text whereas others are fairly well attested, some transactions can only be roughly dated (the too imprecisely dated texts, indicated by dates in italic in Appendix 1, have not been included here) and some prebends are not attested at all during long periods of time, resulting in misleading trend curves (see e.g. the temple- attendant prebend during the second half of the third century B.C.). One must not, then, take these curves as anything other than very general guidelines for analysis. All the data used in the graph are available in Appendix 1. (ca. 260-245 B.C.) these prices seem to have known a first decrease (particularly visible in the case of the butcher and the temple-enterer before Enlil, Ea et alii. prebends), before rising again between the death of Antiochus II (246 B.C.) and the beginning of the reign of Antiochus III (222-187 B.C.). The last fifteen years of the third century, however, saw a stark and general drop in the prebend prices, very clear in the graph, to stabilize about 200 B.C. at a level comparable to the prices under the reign of Antiochus I (281-261 B.C.)74. During the first half of the second century, until the end of the Seleucid rule in Babylonia (141 B.C.), the prices seem to have progressively risen again: the brewer prebend, especially, records a marked increase, and seems to have regained its position of most valued prebend, as in the Neo-Babylonian period. Before attempting to propose an interpretation of these trends, one must consider their representativeness for the Babylonian economy. The participation to the isqu-system, as we have seen, was closed to outsiders. The relations between the local « secular » economy and prebendary « religious » one were, to this respect, only indirect: it was only at the ends of the process that both economies could meet, in the subcontracting of the agricultural exploitation by the temple and the trading of the offerings on the local luxury food market75. Unfortunately, the state of the Late- Babylonian documentation forbids us to analyze the conditions of these connections, and the question of the position of the sanctuaries in the local economy as a whole remains completely open76. However, despite these uncertainties, it appears wiser to seek the factors affecting the prebend price trends in the temple economy itself. And as a matter of fact, the consideration of the two periods of price decrease, in ca. 260-245 and ca. 215-200 B.C., leads to the conclusion of an exact coincedence with important building works in the sanctuaries, since in 244 B.C., the deputy (šaknu) of Uruk Anu-uballiṭ/Nikarchos completed a major extension project of the Bīt-Rēš, and in 201 B.C., the rab ša rēš āli of Uruk Anu-uballiṭ/Kephalon rebuilt the main buildings of the Bīt-Rēš and the Irigal77. We have seen that the prebend-holders also had to contribute to the care of the gods by participating to the building works engaged in their temple. It would then be logical that, if the contributions bearing upon prebend entitlements became heavier during times of extensive building projects, the profitability of these entitlements decreased, as did their attractiveness and hence their prices. One thing, however, remains to be resolved if this assumption is correct: if these decrease in the prebend prices actually reflect the effects of temple building works, why did the prices decrease far more steeply the second time, whereas both archeological material and epigraphy agree on the fact that the first project was far more extensive than the second ? The prebend-holders were of course not the sole contributors of the temple building projects, and the authorities of the Sumero- Akkadian sanctuaries could rely on other funding ressources, among which the royal support was of course paramount. Since the end of the Neo-Babylonian Empire (539 B.C.), however, this royal support had become more conditional and submitted to the benevolence of the sovereigns, whose interests were not exclusively focused on Babylonia any more. It is possible, then, that the difference in the impact of the two projects lied in the fact that the first project was partly supported

74 The same trend had already been identified, with fewer data, by MCEWAN 1981 : 109-120. The interpretation given by the author, who mentioned the possible importance of the Seleucid defeat of Raphia (217 B.C.) appears, however, rather doubtful. 75 C. Waerzeggers (2010 : 268-271) noted that during the Neo-Babylonian period, the prices of the products consecrated by an cultic offering were twice to five times more expensive than the « sceular » ones. Whatever the price of these products on the market may have been, there is little doubt that these were chiefly intended for the local wealthy population. 76 A (very) preliminary study of the real-estate price in Hellenistic Uruk, though, seems to provide trends that appear to be quite comparable to the prebend prices trends. Since all these real-estate properties were more or less closely linked to the institution of the sanctuary, though, the representativeness of this data for the local economy remains to be precised. 77 Though not precisely dated, the works in the Irigal must have been roughly contemporary to the rebuilding of the main part of the Bīt-Rēš. On these building projects, see KOSE 1998 : 186-191. On the local administration of Uruk at that time, see MONERIE forthcoming b). by the Seleucids whereas the second was only financed on a local scale, with the result of much heavier contributions lying on the priests. The documentation could actually provide indirect hints to this situation, since the building inscription of Anu-uballiṭ/Nikarchos, dated to 244 B.C., suggests the existence of personal relationships between the deputy of Uruk and king Antiochus II (261- 246 B.C.) that could imply a Seleukid contribution to the financing of the works78, whereas the two building inscriptions of Anu-uballiṭ/Kephalon are both oriented to the sole glory of the local rab ša rēš āli and provide no evidence for a royal support79. Moreover, the cultic organization of the sanctuary also seems to bear traces of the reconstruction of the main cellae of the Urukean sanctuaries by Anu-uballiṭ/Kephalon, since a major change seems to have occurred at the same time in the organization of the prebendary cultic duties. While during the most part of the third century B.C. the « purveying » priests performed their cultic service in front of Anu, Antu, Ištar, Nanaya and Belēt-ša-rēš80, the documentation post-dating the years ca. 215-205 B.C. provide a different picture, with a cultic service performed before Anu, Antu, Enlil, Ea, Ištar, Nanaya Belēt-ša-rēš, Belēt-ṣēri, and sometimes even other gods81. Similarly, the cultic service of the « ritualist » priests seems to have known a substantial reorganization in the same period. If one considers, for instance, the service of the goldsmiths in charge of the cultic implements, the documentation shows several reforms in the course of the Hellenistic period.

First occurrence Last occurrence Anu Antu Išt. Nan. BšR Enl. B-ṣ Pap. Šar. Ea 217 B.C. 210-209 B.C. ? X X X X X (OECT 9 33) (OECT 9 44) 209-208 B.C. 187-186 B.C. X X X X X (OECT 9 42) (OECT 9 50) 209-208 B.C. 201 B.C. X X X X (OECT 9 42) (OECT 9 45 // 46) 186 B.C. 159 B.C.82 X X X X X X X X X X (OECT 9 54 // 55) (OECT 9 60) 141 B.C. (VS 15 37)

Table 5 : the cultic organization of the goldsmiths in charge of the cultic implements (ērib bīt pirištu u kutīmu)

78 YOS 1 52 o. 2-3. The inscription actually states that it is Antiochus II who bestowed a Greek name on the deputy of Uruk. 79 See, for the building inscription of the Bīt-Rēš, WVDOG 51 pl. 108, and for the Irigal, the Aramaic inscription published in BOWMAN 1939. Could the fragmentary tablets BaM beih. 2 116 and 117, that were found in the library of the lamentation-priests of the Bīt-Rēš and seem to be dated to this period, actually record financial contributions of the priestly community to these building works carried out by Anu-uballiṭ/Kephalon ? 80 The question of the integration of « minor » gods in the cultic service will not be treated here in detail. Their appearance in the legal doucmentation, though, seems to follow consistent patterns that would deserve further investigation. The goddess Belēt-ṣēri, for instance, appears regularly in the documents between ca. 260-257 B.C. (CORÒ 2005 - BM 105197 // 109960) and ca. 225-217 B.C. (CORÒ 2005 - BM 105185 // 109935) before disap- pearing, and reappears from 206 B.C. onwards (YOS 20 49). Similarly, the goddess Šarrahitu and the god Papsukkal appear intermittently in the documentation after 225 B.C. (CORÒ 2005 - BM 105185 // 109935) and 217 B.C. (OECT 9 32) respectively, and then permanently after 203 B.C. (*BM 109955 // *BM 19958). 81 The change seems to have occurred: for the butchers, between 215 (OECT 9 37) and 206 B.C. (YOS 20 49) ; for the bakers, between 213 (VDI 1955/4 07) and ~ 203-192 B.C. (YOS 20 58) ; for the brewers, between 215 (OECT 9 34 // 35) and ~ 209-199 B.C. (VS 15 10) ; for the oil-pressers, between ~ 222-216 (VS 15 18) and 201 B.C. (CM 12 05) ; and for the temple-attendants, who were closely linked to the purveying trades by their activity, between 256 (BRM 2 15) and 204 B.C. (YOS 20 51). All these data point to a reorganization of the cultic prebendary duties during the period 215-206 B.C., coinciding with the presumed period of rebuilding of the main cellae of the Bīt-Rēš and the Irigal by Anu-uballiṭ/Kephalon. 82 Ištar and Ea are only attested in OECT 9 60 for these years. The evolution appears, to this respect, extremely consistent with the information given by the purveying trade documentation. Whereas the prebendary goldsmiths performed their service on the cultic statues of Anu, Antu, Ištar, Nanaya and Belēt-ša-rēš, their service seems to have been divided into two teams ca. 210-208 B.C., with a « main » team working on the statues of Anu, Enlil, Ištar, Nanaya and Belēt-ša-rēš, and a « secondary » one for the statues of Antu, Belēt-ṣēri, Papsukkal and Šarrahitu. This organization lasted till ca. 187-186 B.C., when the teams were merged again83 and the prebendary goldsmith were compelled to word on all the cultic statues. This situation seems to have lasted until the end of the Seleukid rule. Interestingly, however, the latest goldsmith prebend sale (VS 15 37), dated to the very year of the Parthian conquest (141 B.C.), do not specify any cultic statue in front of which the service would be performed. Whether this detail can be taken as revealing of a new reform is difficult to answer in the present state of the documentation. It seems, however, that a new cultic reorganization occurred under Demetrius I (161-151 B.C.). However extensive the reorganization occasioned by the rebuilding of the cellae by Anu-uballiṭ/Kephalon may have been, it does not seem to have led to a reform of the « temple-enterer » (ērib bīti) prebend: both the duties of temple-enterer before « Anu, Antu, Ištar, Belēt-ṣēri and all the gods of their temples » on the one hand, and before « Enlil, Ea, Sîn, Šamaš, Adad, Marduk, Nanaya, Belēt-ša-rēš and all the gods of their temples » on the other seem to remain unchanged during the third of the first half of the second century B.C.84. From the first half of the reign of Demetrius I (ca. 161-156 B.C.) onwards, however, the temple-enterer duties are said to be performed « in front of Anu, Antu, Enlil, Ea, Šamaš, Adad, Papsukkal, Ištar, Belēt- ṣēri, Nanaya, Belēt-ša-rēš, Šarrahitu and all the gods of their temples », suggesting a reform of the cultic organization of the temple-enterer prebend in these years85. On the whole, the Hellenistic Uruk prebends must not be taken as a monolithic block: a thorough study of the data prove that the prebendary system went through various trends and reforms, influenced by the major building projects of Anu-uballiṭ/Nikarchos (ca. 260-245 B.C.) and Anu-uballiṭ/Kephalon (ca. 215-201 B.C.), with periods of cultic reorganization in ca. 210-206, ca. 187-186 and ca. 161-156 B.C., the first being clearly linked to the contemporary building works in the cellae. This study also warns us against simplistic trendline explanations: despite a significant drop in the prebend prices, the last years of the third century were not an era of recession for the Sumero-Akkadian temples of Uruk. The ambitious works undertaken by Anu-uballiṭ/Kephalon, on the contrary, suggest a period of prestige policy and economic optimism for the sanctuaries. The stark decrease of the prebend prices and their low recovery in the first half of the second century only proves that this policy was perhaps a little too ambitious86.

83 OECT 9 42 provides, to this respect, an extremely interesting case. The tablet records the sale of a prebend share of goldsmith in charge of the cultic implements during the reign of Seleucus IV (187-175 B.C.). The property of the entitlemen, though, seems to have been somehow problematic, since the text indicates that the share was obtained by the father of the seller, by means of legal procedure, in 209-208 B.C. The transfer is described in the beginning of the document, where the service is said to be equivalent to 1/30th of prebend in front of Anu, Enlil, Ištar, Nanaya and Belēt-ša-rēš on the one hand, and 1/12th of prebend in front of Antu, Papsukkal, Belēt-ṣēri, Šarrahitu and all the gods of their temples of the other. However, when the entitlement is sold by his son two or three decades later, the share is only described as 1/30th of prebend: the remaining 1/12th share seems to have disappeared. Though the gods in front of which the service was then performed are not explicitly mentioned, the mention of offerings to the gods Enlil, Ištar, Papsukkal and Antu in the description of the related income seems to imply that the service was then performed in front of all the gods. The reorganization of the service in ca. 187-186 B.C. then seems to have been the occasion of a recomposition of the goldsmith prebend shares. 84 The former is continuously attested from 275 B.C. onwards (YOS 20 17 // *BM 109956), and the latter from 261 B.C. onwards (CORÒ 2005 - BM 105181). The latest attestation of both types is dated to the beginning of the reign of Demetrius I (Oppert 5, datable to ca. 161-156 B.C. ?). 85 The only significant text dating to this period is BRM 2 46 (= YOS 20 75) // NCTU 22, dated to 156 B.C. Interestingly, the price of the share is six to eleven times lower than the average price of the temple-enterer prebends before the reorganization (see table 1a). Iraq 39 38, dated to 150 B.C., is too fragmentary to provide secure informations. 86 This picture fits quite well in the local political context of Uruk under the reigns of Antiochus III and his sons, in the late third and early second centuries B.C. (cf. MONERIE forthcoming b)). Can the Late-Babylonian prebendary system, in the end, be defined as a « market » ? Doubtlessly, some elements can be identified as market mechanisms: the prices seem to evolve in a consistent way and suggest that the prebend shares were sold at a price that was the result of the confrontation of supply and demand. If a « market » existed, however, it was partly governed by non-market considerations, such as the status of the principals (linked to their cultic purity), the interests of their families87 and the survival of « clanic » access restrictions to certain prebendary professions. In other words, if any profit-oriented behaviour can be identified, and the loosening of the ties between service and income may have been propitious to this kind of behaviour indeed, it evolved in a constraining context. Consequently, the prebendary system concerned, as a whole, exclusively the priestly community of the local Sumero-Akkadian temples. It was, as we have seen, chiefly reacting to specific internal trends, driven above all by cultic requirements, and was only indirectly linked to the evolution of the local economy. Whether or not these Sumero-Akkadian temples were still, through these indirect channels, a driving force in the Babylonian economy, as in the preceding millenia, remains to be solved.

Appendix 1 : prebend price data from Hellenistic Uruk

Arranger of the sacrificial tables (mubannû)

Price per Monthly Annual day Babylonian Julian Text Sale price service service (in shekels) of yearly date date (in days) (in days) service (S.E.) (B.C.) (in shekels)

CORÒ 2005 - BM 109954 // 109985 1/2 6 20 03,33 11.VIII.037 27.XI.275

Baker (nuhatimmu)

Price per Monthly Annual day Babylonian Text Sale price Julian date service service (in shekels) of yearly date (B.C.) (in days) (in days) service (S.E.) (in shekels)

CORÒ 2005 - BM 109965 1/3 04 34 08,50 ~ 038-066 ? ~ 274-245 ? OECT 9 15 1/36 + 1/6 02,33 20 08,58 08.XII.072 23.02.239 OECT 9 64 1/12 01 07 07,00 ~ 078-089 ? ~ 234-222 ? OECT 9 28 1/6 02 62 ? 31,00 ? ~ 090-097 ? ~ 222-215 ? VDI 1955/4 07 1/6 02 15 07,50 04.VIII.099 25.10.213 YOS 20 58 1/12 01 05 05,00 ~ 103-119 ~ 203-192 RIAA² 297 1/15 + 1/180 0,87 15 13,05 02.I.160 15.04.152

87 For a study of the importance of the institution of the extended family (bīt abi) inside the temple in the Neo- Babylonian period, see WAERZEGGERS 2010 : 81-90. The Late-Babylonian evidence is much more scarce, and will need further investigation to estimate the importance of the institution in the Hellenistic prebendary system. Brewer (sirāšû)

Price per Annual day Babylonian Text Monthly service Sale price Julian date (in days) service (in shekels) of yearly date (B.C.) (in days) service (S.E.) (in shekels) OECT 9 65 1/6 2 20 10,00 ~ 032-046 ~ 280-266 OECT 9 08 1/12 + 1/12 2 20 10,00 ~ 032-046 ~ 280-266 BRM 2 08 1/6 2 13 06,50 03.X.035 09.01.276

CORÒ 2005 - BM 109968 1/3 4 40 10,00 ~ 038-066 ? ~ 274-245 ?

CORÒ 2005 - BM 109957 1/2 6 60 10,00 ~ 038-066 ? ~ 274-245 ? BRM 2 11 1/8 + 3/8 6 25 04,17 21.XII².047 13.04.264 OECT 9 19 1/3 + 1/36 4,33 78 18,01 26.VII.078 10.11.233

CORÒ 2005 - BM 105205 1/8 1,5 20 13,33 078 233-232 NBDM 91 // OECT 9 20 1/2 6 120 20,00 07.XII.080 25.02.231 OECT 9 23 1/12 1 21 21,00 II.084 05-06.228 OECT 9 30 // 31 1/15 + 1/360 + 1/90 0,97 28 28,87 24.III.093 27.06.219 OECT 9 34 // 35 1/18 0,67 18 26,87 27.XII.096 19.03.215 VS 15 10 1/30 + 1/180 0,47 05 10,64 ~ 103-112 ? ~ 209-199 ? BiMes 24 10 1/20 + 1/720 0,62 20 32,26 141 171-170 TCL 13 245 1/12 1 50 50,00 12.IV.144 20.08.168 OECT 9 61 1/18 + 1/480 ? 0,69 ? 25 36,23 ? 153 159-158

Butcher (ṭābihû)

Price per Monthly Annual day Babylonian Text Sale price Julian date service service (in shekels) of yearly date (B.C.) (in days) (in days) service (S.E.) (in shekels) VDI 1955/4 06 1 12 34 02,83 10.IV.012 07.07.300 YOS 20 22 1/6 02 43,5 21,75 14.[xx].047 265-264 YOS 20 23 // 24 1/12 01 16 16,00 02.XI.050 22.01.261 TCL 13 236 1/6 02 36,5 18,25 18.XII.050 09.03.261 TCL 13 237 1/12 01 24 24,00 17.XI.051 24.02.260 YOS 20 25 1/12 01 16,5 16,50 28.I.052 05.05.260

CORÒ 2005 - BM 105197 // 109960 1/12 01 35 35,00 17.IX.055 13.12.257 YOS 20 29 1/4 03 53 17,67 21.08.063 18.11.249 OECT 9 21 1/10 + 1/60 01,4 54 38,57 ~ 080-089 ~ 232-223

CORÒ 2005 - BM 105185 // 109935 1/3 04 138 34,50 02.XII.086 13.03.225 OECT 9 32 1/18 0,67 28 41,79 15.IV.095 24.07.217 *BM 105208 1/8 + 1/90 01,63 20,5 12,58 ~ 103-119 ? ~ 209-192 ? YOS 20 49 1/6 02 25 12,50 14.IX.106 18.12.206

CORÒ 2005 - BM 105174 1/12 01 17 17,00 ~ 107-115 ? ~ 205-197 ? BRM 2 40 // NCTU 9 1/10 01,2 21 17,50 17.VII.150 16.10.162 NCTU 2 // 16 1/6 02 50 25,00 02.XII.155 09.03.154

Date-palm Gardener (rab banû)

Price per Monthly Annual day Babylonian Text Sale price Julian date service service (in shekels) of yearly date (B.C.) (in days) (in days) service (S.E.) (in shekels) BRM 2 13 1 12 08 00,67 21.IX.049 25.11.263

Exorcist (āšipu)

Proportion Price of a Babylonian Text of the prebend Sale price Julian date (in shekels) whole prebend date (B.C.) sold (in shekels) (S.E.)

CORÒ 2005 - BM 105178 1/28 (= 1/4 x 1/7) 30 840 ~ 038-077 ~ 274-234

CORÒ 2005 - BM 105200 1/28 (= 1/4 x 1/7) 20 560 25.VIII.047 20.11.265 BRM 2 16 1/56 (= 1/8 x 1/7) 10 560 01.III.057 12.06.255

CORÒ 2005 - BM 109946 1/56 (= 1/8 x 1/7) 10 560 13.III.057 24.06.255 1/80 *BM 116690 08,5 680 I.090 04.222 (= {1/12+1/240} x 1/7) ? YOS 20 84 1/126 (= 1/8 x 1/7) 17 2142 06.I.096 07.04.216

Gatekeeper (atû) and overseer-gatekeeper (sukkal atû)

Price per day Monthly Annual Babylonian Julian Text Function Sale price of yearly service service (in shekels) date date (in days) (in days) service (S.E.) (B.C.) (in shekels) BRM 2 03 Overseer-gatekeeper 1 + 2/3 20 08 00,40 20.IX.020 13.12.292 BiMes 24 11 Gatekeeper [...] 1/4 03 01 00,33 070 242-241

Goldsmith in charge of the cultic implements (ērib bīt pirištu u kutīmu)

Proportion Price of a Babylonian Text of the prebend Sale price Julian date (in shekels) whole prebend date (B.C.) sold (in shekels) (S.E.) OECT 9 44 1/30 + 1/720 17,5 504 ~ 102-103 ~ 210-209 OECT 9 57 1/30 20 600 ~ 110-119 ? ~ 202-192 ? OECT 9 5088 1/24 10 240 125 187-186 OECT 9 60 1/60 06 360 10.IV.153 09.07.159

88 The transaction is phrased as a deed of donation. Oil-presser (ṣāhitu)

Price per day Annual Babylonian Text Monthly service Sale price of yearly Julian date (in days) service (in shekels) date (B.C.) (in days) service (S.E.) (in shekels) OECT 9 11 1 12 10 00,83 17.IX.043 27.11.269 VS 15 28 1/9 + 1/9 + 1/3 + 1/6 8,67 07 00,81 ~ 090-095 ? ~ 222-216 ? CM 12 05 1/2 6 06 01,00 25.VI.111 05.10.201

Service in the temple Edursaggani, located in the hallatu-orchard (ina kiri hallatu), in front of Belēt-ṣeri and all the gods of her temple.

Price per Monthly Annual day Babylonian Julian Text Sale price service service (in shekels) of yearly date date (in days) (in days) service (S.E.) (B.C.) (in shekels) BRM 2 04 1/4 + 1/12 4 23 05,75 20.IV.029 08.08.283 *BM 78967 1/2 + 1/30 6,4 42 06,56 ~ 046-051 ~ 265-260 BRM 2 12 1/6 2 15 07,50 06.I.048 28.04.264 WZJ 19 1/6 + 1/6 4 25 06,25 14.[xx].048 264-263

CORÒ 2005 - BM 105198 1/4 3 36 12,00 ~ 066-077 ~ 246-234

CORÒ 2005 - BM 109942 // 30119 1/6 2 25 12,50 07.XI.074 01.02.237

CORÒ 2005 - BM 109944 // TCL 13 244 1/3 4 20 05,00 20.III.132 11.06.180 BiMes 24 1289 1/4 3 16 05,33 01.162 04-05.150

Service in the Great Dais (parakku rabû) of the Gate of Anu of the Irigal and the Bīt-Rēš.

Price per day Monthly Annual Babylonian Julian Text Sale price of yearly service service (in shekels) date date (in days) (in days) service (S.E.) (B.C.) (in shekels) RIAA² 296 1/3 4 05,50 01,38 ~ 103-119 ~ 209-193

Singer (nāru) in the Irigal, the Bīt-Rēš, and the Akîtu temples

Proportion Price of a Text of the prebend Sale price Babylonian date Julian date (in shekels) whole prebend (S.E.) (B.C.) sold (in shekels) VS 15 19 1/10 05 50 24.IX.109 24.12.203

89 The transaction concerns a service in the temple and a service of prebendary butcher. Temple-attendant (gerseqqû)

Price per Annual day Babylonian Julian Text Monthly service Sale price (in days) service (in shekels) of yearly date date (in days) service (S.E.) (B.C.) (in shekels)

CORÒ 2005 - BM 30118 1/2 6 20 03,33 ~ 033-043 ~ 279-269

CORÒ 2005 - BM 105189 1/6 2 07,5 03,75 30.XI.044 26.02.267 *BM 109936 1/3 4 10 02,50 ~ 048-050 ~ 264-262

CORÒ 2005 - BM 105203 1/3 4 10 02,50 04.IX.050 27.11.262 BRM 12 15 1/12 1 05 05,00 20.IV.056 11.07.256 YOS 20 51 1/3 4 07,5 01,88 18.VII.108 29.11.204 *BM 109955 // 109958 1/8 1,5 10 06,67 28.VII.109 30.10.203 YOS 20 55 // BiMes 24 03 1/6 2 05 02,50 02.XII.116 30.05.196 CM 12 06 // VS 15 32 1/6 + 1/9 + 1/3 7,33 20 02,73 21.X.119 28.01.192

Temple-enterer (ērib bīti) in front of Anu, Antu, Ištar, Belēt-ṣēri and all the gods of their temples.

Price per day Monthly Annual Babylonian Julian Text Sale price of yearly service service (in shekels) date date (in days) (in days) service (S.E.) (B.C.) (in shekels) YOS 20 17 // *BM 109956 1/4 3 66 22,00 XI.036 02.275 VS 15 1190 2/15 1,6 110 68,80 12.V.083 03.08.229 OECT 9 25 1/12 1 62,5 62,50 12.XII.086 23.03.225

CORÒ 2005 - BM 109949 1/6 2 45 22,50 ~ 103-119 ~ 209-192 YOS 20 54 1/18 0,67 15,5 22,50 115 197-196

CORÒ 2005 - BM 105196 1/60 0,2 05 25,00 12.IV.115 10.08.197

Temple-enterer (ērib bīti) in front of Enlil, Ea, Sîn, Šamaš, Adad, Marduk, Nanaya, Belēt-ša- rēš and all the gods of their temples

Price per Monthly Annual day Babylonian Text Sale price Julian date service service (in shekels) of yearly date (B.C.) (in days) (in days) service (S.E.) (in shekels)

CORÒ 2005 - BM 105181 1/12 1 11,6 11,60 28.VIII.051 09.12.261

CORÒ 2005 - BM 105170 1/6 2 60 30,00 01.IV.055 03.07.257 Oppert 1 2/5 4,8 120 25,00 III.060 06.252

90 Although the gods in front of which the service was performed is not legible for this contract, we have integrated it in the category of temple-enterer in front of Anu, Antu, Ištar and Belēt-ṣēri on the ground of price indications, the price (68,80 shekels a day) being twice higher than the highest recorded price of the other temple-enterer prebend category. One cannot completely discard, however, the possibility that the service of this prebend belonging to the other category (temple-enterer in front of Enlil, Ea et alii.). YOS 20 33 1/12 1 17 17,00 I.068 04-05.244 BRM 2 19 1/20 - 1/360 0,63 11 17,46 02.II.071 08.05.241 VS 15 26 1/20 0,6 19 31,67 ~ 071-089 ? ~ 241-222 ?

CORÒ 2005 - BM 109939 // YOS 20 37 1/3 4 130 32,50 02.II.077 23.05.235

CORÒ 2005 - BM 109940 // Oppert 3 1/6 2 65 32,50 21.I.078 11.05.234 RIAA² 294 1/12 1 08 08,00 10.X.107 01.01.204 YOS 20 59 1/6 2 16 08,00 ~ 103-119 ~ 203-192 VS 15 07 // BiMes 24 06 1/4 ? 3 ? 55 18,30 ? 03.VIII.121 22.10.191

Temple-enterer (ērib bīti) in front of Anu, Antu, Enlil, Ea, Šamaš, Adad, Papsukkal, Ištar, Belēt-ṣēri, Nanaya, Belēt-ša-rēš, Šarrahitu and all the gods of their temples

Price per Monthly Annual day Babylonian Text Sale price Julian date service service (in shekels) of yearly date (B.C.) (in days) (in days) service (S.E.) (in shekels) BRM 2 46 = YOS 20 75 // NCTU 22 1/2 6 20 03,33 17.XI.155 08.02.156

Temple-enterer, butcher and (right) to cooked and raw portions of the sheep-offerings (ērib bīti u ṭābihû u ina širī bašlu u širī balṭu ša immeri) in front of Papsukkal, Amasagnudi and all their gods

Price per Monthly Annual day Babylonian Text Sale price Julian date service service (in shekels) of yearly date (B.C.) (in days) (in days) service (S.E.) (in shekels) BRM 2 29 1 12 04 00,33 ~ 096-098 ~ 216-214 TCL 13 242 1 -1/6 10 04 00,40 099 214-213

Abbreviations : ~ ca. (the dates are established on legal economical and prosopographical grounds) * unpublished // duplicate = tablet published twice Appendix 2 : the impact on prebend prices on the service fragmentation

We have seen that the services of the most expensive prebends were more fragmented than the cheaper ones. If one takes a close look at the evolution of the amount of the shares of cultic service documented by our sources, this fragmentation also appears to have fluctuated over time. Butcher

) Brewer ) e ) e c 45 14 ) i c e i e v 45 7 c v r i c r i v

e 40 v r 12 e 40 r s e

s 6 e y s

l 35 y

s l r 35

y r

10 l y a l r

a 5

30 r e a

e 30 y a

y e f

e

8 f 25 y o

4 y

f 25 o

f y o y

o a

20

6 a

s 20

d 3 s y d y r a 15 r a e 15 d e

4 d p 2

p n

10 i n s 10 i l ( s

l (

e 2 d

e 1

k 5 l 5 d k l e o e o h s

0 0 h 0 0 s t

s t

s n

n n 6 1 6 1 6 1 6

i u 6 1 6 1 6 1 6 n i u ( 9 7 4 2 9 7 4 9 7 4 2 9 7 4 o 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 ( ------2 2 2 2 1 1 1 o

e ------e 0 5 0 5 0 5 0 m 0 5 0 5 0 5 0 c m

i 0 7 5 2 0 7 5 c 0 7 5 2 0 7 5 A i r 3 2 2 2 2 1 1 3 2 2 2 2 1 1 A r P Time (B.C.) P Time (B.C.) Temple-enterer (Enlil) Temple-enterer (Anu) ) )

e 80 3,5 ) e c )

35 6 i e c v i e c r i v

c 70 r v i e 3 r v e

30 s r e 5 s y e s l 60

y r s l

2,5 y

r l a y

25 r l a e r 4 50 a y e

a e y f

2 y e f

20 o y f

o

y 40

f o

y 3 a o

1,5 s a d y

15 s d

r 30

y a r e a 2 d e

p

d 1

p 10 20 n

i s n l ( i s

l ( e

d e l

1 k 0,5

5 d 10 k l o e e o s h

h s t s

0 0 t s 0 0 n

n n u i n ( i u 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 1 6 1 6 1 6 o ( 9 6 3 0 7 4

o 9 7 4 2 9 7 4 e 2 2 2 2 1 1 m

e 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 ------c i m 0 0 0 0 0 0 A c

0 5 0 5 0 5 0 r i 0 7 4 1 8 5 A

r 0 7 5 2 0 7 5

P 3 2 2 2 1 1 3 2 2 2 2 1 1 P Time (B.C.) Time (B.C.) "In the hallatu-orchard" ) e c )

i 14 4,5 e v r c i

e 4 v r s 12

e y

l 3,5 s r

y a 10 l r e 3 y a

f 8 e o 2,5 y

f s o y 2 a 6 s Price y d

a r 1,5 Amount sold d e

4 p n

1 i ( s

l

2 d e 0,5 l k o e s

h

0 0 t s n

u n 6 1 6 1 6 1 6 i 9 7 4 2 9 7 4 o (

2 2 2 2 1 1 1 ------e 0 5 0 5 0 5 0 m c

0 7 5 2 0 7 5 A i

r 3 2 2 2 2 1 1 P Time (B.C.)

Figure 2 : Prices and amounts of prebendary service exchanged in Hellenistic Uruk Almost all the graphs seem to present the same « scissor-shaped » curves, indicating an inverse correspondance between the price of the shares and the amounts of the prebendary service sold. In other words, when prices increased, service fragmentation increased as well, and vice versa. This situation may be due, as we have seen, to the fact that when prices where high, the division of the shares by inheritance must have been more frequent, and potential buyers rarer. When prices were low, on the contrary, prebend shares were less divided between heirs and potential buyers more numerous: when these buyer already owned a share of the same prebend, the service was subjet to a trend of recomposition of the service. This phenomenon tending to « market » mechanisms, however, must not be taken for granted: the more or less parallel curves of the temple-enterer before Enlil and other gods, as well as the ones of the butcher prebend during the second century B.C. warns us against simplistic explanations, and appeals for more comprehensive studies.

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BiMes 24 WEISBERG 1991 Oppert OPPERT / MÉNANT 1877

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CM 12 WALLENFELS 1998 TCL 13 CONTENAU 1929

Iraq 59 JURSA 1997 VDI 1955/4 SARKISIAN 1955

NBDM MOORE 1935 VS 15 SCHROEDER 1916

NCTU SARKISIAN 1974 WZJ 19 OELSNER 1970

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