Imperium and Officium Working Papers (IOWP)

The Value of Silver: Wages as Guides to the Standard of Living in 1st BC 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– draft version: do not quote without permission –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 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 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 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 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 and Han-period . 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 BC when compared to data from the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC (Ur III and Old Babylonian periods), on par with Classical . 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. 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.

Imperium & Officium: Comparative Studies in Ancient Bureaucracy and Officialdom Reinhard Pirngruber 3

A BABYLONIAN CONSUMPTION BASKET Even with a significant role of the market as a mode of exchange ascertained beyond doubt – an indispensable precondition for the concept of a welfare ratio to make sense –, it is still a quite complicated task to calculate a welfare ratio for Babylonia especially for the Seleucid and Parthian periods, mainly because the data on prices and wages at our disposal are distributed in a rather uneven manner. Whereas the ‘long 6th century’ is fairly well documented in terms of commodity prices and different types of incomes – silver wages and salaries in kind (“rations”) – due to the survival of a considerable number of both institutional (temple) and private archives from different cities (Babylon, Sippar, Borsippa and Uruk, to name just a few), the situation is different in later . On the one hand, the Astronomical Diaries provide us with one of the largest databases of prices for basic commodities (among which the staple foods barley and dates as well as wool) for any era of the pre- industrial world for the period between the 4th and the BC. On the other hand, price information on other goods (sheep, slaves, house rents) which adequately documented in the earlier period is almost completely absent, as is information on income. This makes it difficult to establish a bare bone basket for the period after the 6th century BC. We start thus with determining a simplified consumption basket for Babylonia for the 6th century BC on the basis of the data available. The main difference between Babylon and other pre- industrial societies such as Ancient Rome in terms of consumption is the existence of two-crop regime in Babylonia: barley and dates can be reckoned to account for minimum two thirds of the total caloric intake, and probably more (Jursa 2010, 50).8 Of course it is impossible to subsist on these two staples alone for lack of vital vitamins and nutrients. As in most pre-industrial economies, one has to reckon with a considerable share of non-marketed goods, i.e. fruit and vegetables cultivated on one’s own plot of land for home requirements.9 Especially various types of legumes – which are particularly relevant because they are quite rich in proteins and thus an important dietary supplement in societies with low levels of meat consumption (i.e. most ancient societies) – and garlic and onions fall into this category. However, there are also two of these crop types about which price information is rather readily available, namely cress and sesame. Both commodities were regularly issued by Babylonian temples as part of rations and travel provisions (Janković 2008), and additionally, their prices were recorded in the Astronomical Diaries. On the basis of the former we will assume monthly quantities of one litre of cress and 0.3 litres of sesame oil corresponding to 1.8 litres of sesame (cf. Janković 2008, 447) as desirable intake. We will consider cress as a proxy for different sources of vitamins (rather than calories), and sesame oil as proxy for more prestigious foodstuffs (such as – unrelated but certainly part of the diet – dairy products; but note that sesame is also rich in proteins). As regards the minimum daily caloric intake for an adult, we will exceed the requirement of 1,940 kilocalories (kcal) used by Allen 2009 and calculate with 2,100 kcal, which is the amount recommended in contemporary development economics (and employed e.g. in the World Bank’s Handbook on poverty and Inequality).10 Following Allen 2009, we will, however, consider a minimum amount of 60-70 grams of proteins per day for a bare bones basket. Thus we arrive at a daily consumption of 315 grams of barley (ca. 1,117 kcal) and 250 grams of dates (ca. 280 kcal), and 42 grams of sesame (ca. 240 kcal).11 The full results are reported in Table 1.

8 Cf. the estimate of Paul Garnsey 1983 that cereals accounted for 70-75% of total food consumption in the Ancient Mediterranean quoted in Jursa 2008, 411. 9 E.g., many rent contracts concerning the lease of date gardens stipulate that the lessee is to cultivate the soil beneath the date palms with unspecified crops, the harvest of which constitutes his actual remuneration. See Ries 1976. 10Published online at: http://issuu.com/world.bank.publications/docs/9780821376133. Last accessed (via the World Bank’s Homepage) on 25 July 2014. 11 Note that the historical proportions were indeed close to a ratio of 50:50 both according to 6th century ration lists and a study on Iraq in the 1950s AD, in case of the latter slightly skewed towards barley.

Imperium & Officium: Comparative Studies in Ancient Bureaucracy and Officialdom The Value of Silver 4

TABLE 1: Subsistence lifestyle – Bare bones baskets for Babylonia, 6th century BC Product Quantity per Silver value Kcalories Proteins Spending 12 year (in shekels per per day per day share year)13 Barley 115 kilos 2.71 1,117 32 29.6% /191 litres Dates 90 kilos 0.78 705 6 8.5% /112.5 litres Sesame 15.2 kilos 1.60 240 17 17.5% /21.6 litres Meat 5 kilos 1.12 30 9 12.2% Cress 12 litres 0.36 - - 3.9% Clothing 5 minas of 1.40 - - 15.3% wool Fuel 2 MBTU 0.45 - - 4.9% House rent - 0.75 - - 8.1% Total value - 9.17 2,092 64 100%

As regards housing, Jursa (2010, 298) assumed an absolute minimum value of three shekels of silver per year for the house rent per family – not per person. 14 Since we have a multiplication factor of four under the assumption of a family consisting of two adults and two children, this implies in turn that per person the house rent would amount to ca. 0.75 shekel. This value corresponds to ca. 8% of the total budget. Comparative evidence from mid- Lyon, Holland and late England suggesting house rents varying between 8 and 11% of total budget (Cipolla 1974, 39) lends some credibility to three shekels as minimum estimate. On that basis, a free Babylonian labourer should have earned about 37 shekels of silver per year to maintain a hypothetical family of four persons during the 6th century BC. This result compares well with Jursa’s (2010, 298) calculation of 27 shekels of silver for an urban household not affiliated to temple or palace during the reign of (556-539 BC), when the price level was significantly lower than during the 6th century BC at large, and the total cost of the basket was probably closer to 25-30 shekels per year (see table 118 in Jursa 2010, 793 for a quick overview of the mean and median prices of the most important commodities during the 6th century and during the period 570-539 BC: barley, for example, was half as expensive in the latter period). Also the actual wage data at our disposal gives credibility to the calculated basket. With a mean monthly income of 3.1 shekels of silver – a value based on the data collected in Jursa 2010, 674ff., table 103 – a hired labourer would have earned about 37 shekels a year under full employment.

12 The conversion rates from litres to kilos are 0.6 for barley, 0.8 for dates (both Jursa 2010, 51), and 0.7 for sesame (own experiment, with not too finely calibrated kitchen scales). The amounts of fuel (5% of the total budget) and meat per year have been adopted from Allen 2009 (they are also accepted by Scheidel 2010). 13 The silver values for barley, dates, and sesame are based on the mean prices of these commodities established in Jursa 2010, thus 2.56, 1.24 and 13.36 shekel per kurru respectively. The value for cress is based on the mean value of the prices collected in Janković 2008, 460 (Table 2). As the dressed weight (hence, the carcass without skin and internal organs but still including the bones) of a sheep amounts to about 30 kilograms nowadays, less than half of that actually being meat, we decided to equate the price of yearly meat consumption with 1/3 the mean price of a sheep, 3.36 shekel (Jursa 2010, 740). 14 The mean price of house rents during the 6th century actually amounts to 18.69 shekels per year. See Hackl/Pirngruber 2014. Note, however, that the information is derived from the archives of the more affluent members of society and certainly is not applicable without further ado to the living conditions of the ‘urban proletariat’.

Imperium & Officium: Comparative Studies in Ancient Bureaucracy and Officialdom Reinhard Pirngruber 5

THE STANDARD OF LIVING IN BABYLONIA DURING THE 6TH CENTURY BC AND LATER What are the implications of above results for the standard of living in Babylonia? The welfare ratio is simply the yearly income divided by yearly expenditure. Calculating with Allen’s (2010) 250 working days per year, annual income would amount to 25.8 shekels a year, which would result in a welfare ratio of around 0.7. This means that a single male unskilled labourer earned about 70% of the household income of a family of four. This value is close in range with Scheidels’s (2010) results for Roman . However, for several reasons this value certainly underestimates welfare in 6th century Babylonia. First of all, we have to reckon with lower caloric requirements of females and children. Under the assumption that expenditure in a household consisting of one man, one woman and two or more children equalled expenditures for three adults (as was done by Allen 2009, 335; adopted by Scheidel 2010), the welfare ratio would rise to 0.93. Moreover, women and children often contributed to household budget (see e.g. Joannès 2008 on female labour in institutional contexts). Most importantly, the calculation also implies that under the favourable conditions prevailing during large parts of the 6th century BC, a life in relative prosperity was feasible for Babylonian urban labourers. Considering that the large-scale building projects of the Neo-Babylonian such as Nebuchadnezzar II in the first half of the 6th century BC provided steady work for hundreds of people over several and possibly decades (cf. Jursa 2010, 680), the welfare ratio obtained for full employment – 360 work days – is likely a more realistic estimate: the value would increase to 1.01 (or even 1.35 assuming an expenditure level on par with three adults), meaning that a single household income exceeds ‘bare bones’ expenses and leaves some space for more refined consumption.15 However, this impression of quite elevate levels of prosperity needs to be modified in some regard. In order to obtain a fuller picture of overall welfare in Babylonia, we also need to account for the fact that the silver wages paid to free hired labourers just discussed were on a significantly higher level than the income of temple staff, which is by itself another indicator of the relative welfare of free – i.e. not attached to an institution, temple or palace – urban labourers.16 The rations, or more correctly ‘salaries in kind’ (Jursa 2008) of temple dependents of the Ebabbar-temple in Sippar in the long 6th century typically amounted to 180 litres of dates or, less often, barley, per month for fully trained workers. Expressed as wheat wage, free labourers earned almost twice the amount of labourers attached to temples: Whereas the latter earned ca. 6 litres per day based on the 180 litre ‘salaries in kind’, the former earned up to 14.4 litres monthly.17 The main reason for this phenomenon is usually thought to be the scarcity of manpower available for the large-scale building projects (palaces, canals) of the Neo-Babylonian kings (Jursa 2010, 678). Even allowing for the fact that temple employees received salaries in kind throughout the year regardless of employment opportunities, this means that free labourers had a higher income by a factor of at least 1/3 and even more under favourable economic circumstances. The fact that temple employees normally will not have had to cover housing expenses and additionally received a yearly allowance of wool (Jursa 2010, 297f.) from the temple was thus vital for their survival. Their situation seems to have even worsened in the 5th and 4th centuries BC in the Late Achaemenid and Early Hellenistic periods, when the salaries in kind dropped to 65 litres a month. However, this drop is more apparent than real, as women (and children) now received separate salaries (women usually 45 litres per month), whereas the older standard of 180 litres was intended for an entire family (Hackl/Pirngruber 2014). Hence, actual family income of temple dependents was still close to the old 180 litres of barley per month. After ca. 300 BC, in the Seleucid and Parthian periods, information on wages and salaries in kind runs dry. However, the rich price data from the Astronomical Diaries also allows us to calculate the value in silver of the standard 65 litres salaries in kind of the Late Period based on the average price equivalents of dates and barley. As it could be demonstrated that wage levels were tied to commodity prices during the 6th century (Jursa 2010, 679 and Fig. 25), such an approach should give

15 Unfortunately, we do not have sufficient price data on minor products to calculate a respectability basket for Babylonia. If we extrapolate argumenti causa from W. Scheidel’s values for Roman Eypt where the welfare ratio for the respectability basket is ca. 40% lower with respect to the bare bones basket, we arrive at a respectability welfare ratio of 0.54 (under full employment and assuming household expenditure equalling that of three adults) for Babylonia. 16 Jursa 2010, 669-678. 17 Jursa 2010, 815 table 120; see also Beaulieu 2005, 53-55, 67.

Imperium & Officium: Comparative Studies in Ancient Bureaucracy and Officialdom The Value of Silver 6 us a reasonably accurate picture of the development of the approximate wage level during the BC.

TABLE 2: Hypothetical minimum wage equivalents of institutional labourers in Babylonia, ca. 200 BC-100 BC Period BC Date price Silver value of a salary in equivalent kind of (litres/shekel) 65 litres/month in shekel 200-176 231.95 0.28 175-151 323.76 0.20 150-126 276.80 0.23 125-100 103.98 0.63

Period BC Barley price Silver value of a salary in (litres/shekel) kind of 65 litres/month in shekel 200-176 126.24 0.51 175-151 148.7 0.44 150-126 89.27 0.73 125-100 44.9 1.45

At first glance, the silver value of a 65 litres/month salary in kind seems impossibly low, especially when based on dates. However, a closer look reveals that the 6th century Sippar standard of 180 litres of dates amounted to only 1.02 shekel of silver around the middle of the 6th century BC (Jursa 2010, 5862183), which corresponds to circa 0.35 shekels for a 65 litre date income. This aligns very well with our findings for the first three quarters of the 2nd century BC.18 Unfortunately, we have no means of comparing the (higher) wage level of free labourers over time, especially since one cannot postulate a priori the persistence of the background conditions such as high demand of manpower for building projects prevailing in the 6th century BC. In a somewhat speculative manner, one can even go as far as trying and use the few glimpses of information we have to obtain some insight in the development of bare bones ratio over time in Babylon (see Table 4). As regards data on income from the Parthian period, there are two references to wages (īdu) rather than rations (kurummatu): In both CT 49 150 and BRM I 99 (Van der Spek 1998, texts 13 and 18), millers (ararru) received 2.5 shekels of silver but unfortunately, the number of recipients is not stated. Also, there are only very few pieces of evidence on silver rations. The only indication we have for the 2nd century BC is the ration (kurummatu) of an astronomer – hardly an unskilled worker – amounting to 1 mina of silver per year, which equals 5 shekel per month (CT 49 144 dating to 119/8 BC, see van der Spek 1998, 252f.). Additionally, this astronomer had a plot of land (of unspecified size) at his disposal. The silver rations (kurummatu) for various professions attested in the Rahim-Eşu archive – all dating to the year 218 Seleucid Era, i.e. 94/3 BC – align nicely with this isolated instance. For example, a parchment scribe (sēpiru) earned a monthly ration of 4 shekels of silver (CT 49 150, cf. Van der Spek 1998, 222f. and 252f.). According to the same text, a porter (atû) of the “Day-One Temple” was paid a ration of 1 shekel per month, the cleaners (muremmiku) employed in the same temple received 1.5 shekels of silver per month. Hence, a stratification of income according to education is clearly visible in these texts. It is important to note that these incomes are explicitly qualified as rations and thus cannot be compared directly to the silver wages of free hire labourers of the 6th century BC, especially as these rations comprised only part of

18 On the basis of the 6th century mean (date) price which is inflated by the high values prevailing after ca. 520 BC, the silver equivalent of the 180 litres of dates amounts to 1.24 shekels. This basically means that prices rose less sharply in the last quarter of the 2nd century BC compared to the period ca. 520-500 BC. For the period between 400 and 330 BC, the monthly silver value of the 65 litres/month salary amounted to one shekel of silver per month – not an unlikely value considering the high level of commodity prices (and price fluctuations) in this period.

Imperium & Officium: Comparative Studies in Ancient Bureaucracy and Officialdom Reinhard Pirngruber 7 the remuneration of the temple employees supplemented e.g. by sustenance land, as the example of the astronomers shows.

TABLE 3: Price equivalents in Babylonia in the second half of the 2nd century BC Period BC 150-126 125-100 Barley price equivalent (litres per 89.3 44.9 shekel) Date price equivalent (litres per 276.8 104 shekel) Sesame price equivalent (litres per 17.1 10 shekel) Cress price equivalent (litres per 34 30.3 shekel) Wool price equivalent (minas per 2.3 1.5 shekel)

As starting point of our estimate, we shall take the wage of 2.5 shekel of silver mentioned in two documents from the Rahim-Eṣu-archive (CT 49 150 and BRM I 99)19 which is paid to an unspecified number of millers for an unspecified period in the year 94/3 BC. The question that shall be tackled is whether this value could constitute a plausible monthly income for one person, especially in the light of the fact that wages in the 6th century were on average higher by a full shekel. One of the documents under discussion (CT 49 150 = Van der Spek 1998 text 13) also mentions a barley equivalent of 90 litres/per shekel, which was exceptionally favourable for the period in question. According to the data contained in the Astronomical Diaries, the years between 95 and 93 BC, to which the attestation of the wage dates, saw the lowest prices of the decade between 99-90 BC. We will thus experiment with two differing starting assumptions. In the first column (150-126 BC), we assume that this wage was representative for a monthly wage for the period 150-126 BC, when the average barley price was almost exactly the same as in the document in CT 49 150. In the second column, we assume that the wage was representative for the chronologically closest period (125-100 BC). The prices for barley, dates, sesame, cress and wool are given above in Table 3. Unfortunately, we miss information on meat, fuel, and house rent, which gap can be solved by adopting the ratio of meat, fuel and house rent relative to the other prices from the 6th century BC when they accounted for ca. 25% of total expenditure. This results in the price of an annual bare bones basket. As in the previous tables, the bare bones basket is calculated by dividing the annual wage by the bare bones basket multiplied by four (in order to account for household, not individual, expenditure).

TABLE 4: Bare bones expenditure in Babylon, ca. 200 BC-100 BC (in shekel) Period BC 150-126 125-100 Barley 2.14 4.25 Dates 0.41 1.08 Sesame 1.26 2.16 Cress 0.35 0.4 Clothing 2.17 3.34 Total expenditure (+25%) 7.91 14.04 Welfare ratio20 0.95/0.66 0.52/0.37

19 The texts of this archive were edited by Van der Spek 1998; to the material published there one can now add some newly identified tablets discussed by J. Hackl (this volume). 20 As earlier in this section, we calculated the welfare ratio both under the assumption of full employment, and for 250 working days per year.

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In the quarter of a century between 150 and 126 BC, the welfare ratio would still amount to 0.95 under full employment. However, as Babylonia very likely did not experience benefits of empire comparable to the Neo-Babylonian (and also early Achaemenid) periods in these years, the welfare ratio calculated with 250 working days, amounting 0.66 , is a more realistic approach. For the period between 125 and BC, the standard of living clearly seems to have deteriorated, with the welfare ratios a 0.52 (full employment) and 0.37 (250 work days) respectively. Summing up, during the last quarter of the second century BC, a monthly wage of 2.5 shekels of silver would entail a significantly lower standard of living in Babylonia compared to the 6th century BC. However, in more favourable years (as e.g. in 94/3 BC), this income would have easily sufficed to maintain a family, as is clear from the values for the years 150-126 BC. Such a development would actually be commensurable with overall developments in the 2nd century BC when a worsening of climatic circumstances was accompanied by increasing political instability (as reflected by the growing number of instances of armed conflict) and higher commodity prices in Babylonia (Huijs et al. forthcoming). Although we do not know whether the attested wage of 2.5 shekel constituted a monthly income for one person, it is thus at least possible that this value is not far off the mark. The important ramification is that the other attested silver rations (kurummatu) are now clearly shown to have been supplements to total income. Taking the ration of a cleaner (1.5 shekel) or a porter (1 shekel), we were to end up with subsistence ratios in 125-100 BC of 0.02 and 0.01 respectively. This is of course far below the possibility of a family to survive.

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