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Imperium and Officium Working Papers (IOWP) the Value of Silver Imperium and Officium Working Papers (IOWP) The Value of Silver: Wages as Guides to the Standard of Living in 1st Millennium BC Babylonia and Beyond Version 01 August 2014 Reinhard Pirngruber (University of Vienna, Department of Oriental Studies) Abstract: This paper attempts to gauge the standard of living in Babylonia during the first millennium BC. To that purpose, Robert Allen's concept of a welfare ratio calculated by means of a consumption basket was adapted to match the specificities of the Babylonian economy. © Reinhard Pirngruber 2014 [email protected] Reinhard Pirngruber 1 – draft version: do not quote without permission – THE VALUE OF SILVER: WAGES AS GUIDES TO THE STANDARD OF LIVING IN 1ST MILLENNIUM BC BABYLONIA AND BEYOND Reinhard Pirngruber INTRODUCTION1 Recent scholarship has largely abandoned the traditional view model of a mainly redistributive economy for Babylonia, especially during the first millennium BC. Most succinctly this was stated by Michael Jursa, according to whom a “growing urban population prompted agrarian change, stimulated the development of markets and money-based exchange, and allowed increasing economic specialisation and division of labour” (Jursa 2010, 799) during what he termed the ‘long 6th century BC’ (ibid. 5), i.e. the period between the rise of the Neo-Babylonian dynasty in 626 BC and the ‘end of archives’ in the aftermath of the abortive rebellions against Xerxes in his second regnal year in 484 BC (Waerzeggers 2003/04). It also seems that Babylonia as region was a reasonably well integrated economic space in that period, mainly due to comparatively low transportation costs owing to an extended network of canals facilitating transport (M. Weszeli in Jursa 2010, 138-140). In the present context of the expansion of the market as exchange mode, it is also relevant to note that the concept of temple employees receiving rations from the institution they were attached to has been modified to a considerable extent; rather than speaking of rations destined to fully satisfy consumption needs, this income is now qualified as “salaries in kind” (Jursa 2008). These findings are based on a careful examination of thousands of legal and administrative documents stemming from the archives both private entrepreneurs such as the Egibi family from Babylon and institutional archives, mainly the Ebabbar-temple of Sippar and the Eanna-temple in Uruk. These texts are supplemented by the rich data on commodity prices (or, to be more precise, rather price equivalents – a variable quantity of a commodity exchanged for a fixed amount (one shekel) of silver which can be converted into prices) – dating to the period between ca. 400 and 60 BC contained in the Astronomical Diaries2 which can be shown to have been indeed market prices.3 The Astronomical Diaries are the main source of various aspects of Babylonian history in the Seleucid and Parthian periods, and allow not only for quantified assessments of the economy’s performance but also shed some light on its underlying structure, especially in combination with the (rather meagre amount of) archival documents postdating the watershed of 484 BC.4 1 This paper originates in a joint presentation with Bas van Leeuwen, to whom I owe thanks for extensive and illuminating discussions on the topic and methodology, and Jieli van Leeuwen-Li at the workshop ‘The global and long-term development of real wages: methods, problems and possibilities’ at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam in November 2012. In that contribution, the Babylonian data were compared to what is known from Rome and Han-period China. This paper was written within the framework of the research network “Imperium” amd “Officium” – Comparative Studies in Ancient Bureaucracy and Officialdom, funded by the FWF – Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung (Vienna). 2 The Astronomical Diaries likely begin during the reign of Nabonassar already, however, it is only from ca. 400 BC onwards that prices are extant in sufficient quantity as to be amenable to economic analysis. The editio princeps of the Astronomical Diaries is Sachs/Hunger 1988, 1989 and 1996. The price data they contain is supplemented by the prices in the Late Babylonian Commodity Price Lists edited by Slotsky/Wallenfels 2009. For extensive analyses of the wealth of price data they contain see Slotsky 1997, Vargyas 2001 and Pirngruber 2012. 3 This was established in the first place Temin 2002 and Van der Spek 200, 295-297. 4 A comprehensive discussion of the archival texts from northern Babylonia from the Late Achaemenid, Hellenistic and Parthian period as well as editions of a significant amount of hitherto unpublished texts is now provided by J. Hackl 2013. Imperium & Officium: Comparative Studies in Ancient Bureaucracy and Officialdom The Value of Silver 2 GAUGING THE STANDARD OF LIVING In researching the standard of living in preindustrial societies, three methods with varying complexity and explanatory power have usually been employed. Where there is enough data on prices and wages available, one can try and calculate the GDP per capita conveying information on the mean income in a given society. As regards Babylonia, Földvári/Van Leeuwen 2012 guesstimated GDP per capita at 700 to 750 Geary-Khamis (G-K) dollars around 400 BCE, which is clearly above the subsistence threshold of ca. 400 G-K dollars, and even above the range of 610 to 700 G-K dollars that Scheidel and Friesen (2009, 63-74) came up with for the Roman Empire. However, the major weakness of calculating a GDP is the fragmentary nature of the sources at our disposal, resulting in often debatable results for antiquity: estimates of GDP per capita for the Roman Empire vary by 129% in cash terms (see Scheidel and Friesen 2009, 66 and Table 1). It remains thus to be seen whether the results of Földvári and Van Leeuwen will stand the test of time; suffice it to note here that their methodology is less sophisticated and less cautious that the one employed by Scheidel and Friesen.5 The latter also point out another difficulty with the concept of GDP per capita in ancient societies, namely the prevailing high inequality in income between elites and the common man. Moreover, GDP per capita does not tell us anything about actual consumption patterns. Safer results are provided by a cruder yardstick, the wheat wage, which measures the daily income of an unskilled male labourer in terms of litres of wheat (Scheidel 2010, Jursa 2010, 811-816). This method has the obvious advantage of being available for a much greater number of societies than for which a calculation of GDP is possible. The studies cited above point to a rather high standard of living of unskilled workers in Babylonia during 6th century BC when compared to data from the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC (Ur III and Old Babylonian periods), on par with Classical Athens. However, also the wheat wage conveys no information about actual consumption, and to make matter even more complicated, the Babylonian economy relied on two crops (barley and dates) as its staples rather than on one clearly predominant grain. Furthermore, the wheat wage does not consider the role of money in a given economy which is all the more regretful as Babylonia experienced increasing monetization during the 6th century BC (Jursa 2010, 624-633, 772-783 and 787-790). A third way to gauge the standard of living in a society is the concept of a welfare ratio pioneered and applied to i.a. Ancient Rome by Bob Allen (2009). In this method, the purchasing power of a monthly wage in silver with respect to a standardized basket of commodities is measured, with a further distinction between a basket considering only the most basic needs (‘bare bones basket’) and a basket that also allows for the consumption of more prestigious goods such as increased amounts of meat and other animal products (‘respectability basket’).6 This is an approach that holds some promise for 1st millennium BC when the documentation on wages and prices is dense enough to establish a bare bones basket at least. Moreover, this method conveys information about actual consumption and considers the role of silver within the economy.7 5 The answer of Scheidel and Friesen 2009 was to tackle GDP from different angles (expenditure, income and income ratio) and to work with upper and lower limits for key variables rather than relying solely on absolute numbers, thus producing a more convincing result than earlier attempts. There is another crude estimate of Babylonian GDP in the Persian period (Bedford 2007, 327), but the ‘iconic’ numbers employed of a monthly wage of one shekel in combination with a barley price of one shekel per 180 litres are no longer tenable. After examination of the evidence available, Jursa 2010, 448 gives a mean price of 2.59 shekels per 180 litres for the period between 626 and 484 BC; on wages see his statement on 677 “the often invoked ‘standard’ (or ‘iconic’) wage of one shekel per month has little economic reality”. 6 Also adopted and modified by Scheidel 2010, 427-436. Both Allen and Scheidel employ Diocletian’s edict on prices to construct their consumption basket, which seems to have been directed mainly at the eastern half of the empire, i.e. modern day Syria, in a time of economic expansion triggered by increased demand, see Meißner 2000, especially 88-90. These circumstances of course call to mind M. Jursa’s assessment of the Babylonian economy in the 6th century BC quoted at the beginning of this contribution. 7 Allen 2009, 328 also mentions human length as measured by means of skeletal remains as indicator of welfare. While such a study for Babylonia is certainly a tempting undertaking, it would require much groundwork and is thus beyond the scope of this contribution.
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