Ledgers and Prices Larly Mesopotamian Merchant Accounts 1)ANIl:l. C. SNEI-L \ew Haven and London Yale University Press Yale Near Eastern Researches, 8 EDlTORlA L COMMITTEE \VILL.IAM W HAL-LO. ed~tor MARVlh H. POPE WILLIAM K. SIMPSON Published with assistance from the In memory of Yale Babylonian Collection Iva Hawkins Snell and Clair John Snell Copyright @ 1982 by Yale University. All rights reser~ed. my first and best teachers This book may not be reproduced. in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the C.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press). without written permission from the publishers. Designed b! Sali! Harm and set In Timez Roman t!pe. Printed in the l'nited State\ of America b! The \'ail-Ballou Press. Bingharnton. S.Y. Librar~of Congress Cataloging In Publ~cationData Snell. Daniel C Ledgers and prices-earl! Mesopotamian merchant accounts (Yale Sear Eastern researches: 8) A re\ision of the author's thesis. Yale. 1975. Bihl~ograph!: p. Includes ~ndcx. I. Bookkeeping-~Histor! 2. .Accounting-~lraq History. 3. ?rlerchnnts - Iraq- hist to^-!. I. Title. 11. Series. HF5616.172S63 1982 657'.0935 80-26604 ISBh 0-300-025 17-3 Contents Tables ix Plates xi Acknowledgments xiii Abbreviations xv Metrological Tables xix Introduction i Study of Merchants 3 Study of Prices 6 1 The Forms of the Silver Accounts 11 Accounts Here Studied 12 A Representative Text 17 Parts of the Accounts 24 Toward a Definition 36 Distinctions .Among Accounts 40 Composition and Point of \'iew 45 Silver Accounts From Other Periods 39 Place in the History of Accounting 53 2 The Functions of the Silver Accounts 55 Movement of Capital Goods 55 Movement of Expended Goods 65 The Bureaus 75 Standing Orders 96 The Circle of SeS-kala 99 Periodicity of Accounts 103 The Problem of Lagash 108 3 Prices in the Accounts l lj Contents of Tables 1 18 Tables 121 4 Analysis of Prices 182 Theoretical Price Problems I83 Merchants and Non-Account Price Texts 188 Price Analysis 189 Prices in lbbi-Sin's Reign 196 Comparison with Archivally Attested Prices from Other Periods 201. Comparison with Tariffs 204 Tables 5 Glossary of Priced Products and Accounting Terms 208 Glossary 2 16 6 Conclusions 238 Appendix 1 Indices 241 Personal Names 241 1. Silver Balanced Accounts 15 Institutions 255 2. The Resin List 31 Place Names 262 3. Smaller Texts and Larger Texts 41 Words 263 4. Silver Account Capital 43 Appendix 2 Standing Orders 270 5. Physical Description of Accounts 46 Selected Bibliography 279 6. Capital Goods Movement 55 Concordance of Museum Numbers 283 7. Percentages of Silver in Capital Sections 60 -4utographed Texts Plates 1 XLI1 8. Expended Goods Movement 65 9. VCS 7: 69 = .4S4iL:rDZ: 2: I t'i. 66 10. \'Dl 1976 (3) 110f. = 4S4Sgk 69 1 1. .AS3Se>:1: 7ff. = .A 05 -32: SX:7: jff. 71 12. AS4Sgk: 3: 64: 18 = '40s 32:S23: 1: Iff. 71 13. Composite View of Bureaus and Lines of Control 77 14. Gmernor's Bureau 78 15. Palace 79 16. The Comptroller 79 17. Metal~orkBureau 82 18. .4griculture Bureau 83 19. Ur Bureau 84 20. fio!.al Bureaus 85 2 1. King's Bureau 87 27. Sara's House 88 23. Dukuga 89 24. Cultic Bureaus 90 75. Boat Bureau 91 26. Leather Bureau 92 27. The Bala 94 28. Standing Orders Within AS9UrDZ 97 29. Occurrences of Subscribers Within Accounts 100 30. The Circle of Sei-kala I01 31. Periodicity of Accounts 104 32. Months of Composition 106 33. Reconstructed Account Activity 107 34. Correspondence to Demand Curve 190 35. Rising and Falling Prices 193 36. Prices in Ibbi-Sin's Reign 197 Plates 37. Distribution of Texts from Ur in the Reign of Ibbi-Sin 200 38. Ur 111 Median Prices Compared with Normal Archival Prices of Other Periods 202 39. Ur 111 Median Prices Compared with Old Babylonian Royal Te.~rCode (Cop!.ist) Tariffs 205 Cop!, Sequence or Museum 40. Lands of Origin of Account Products 210 Plate* h'um her I AS2xiiiUrT (P. Michalowski) 11 AS3Pd obverse 111 AS3Pd reverse I v AS4UrDZ obverse (F. J Stephens) + v AS4UrDZ reverse (F. J Stephens)+ V1 AS5PdA obverse \'I I AS5PdA reverse VIII ASSPdB IX AS5SesA obverse X AS5SesA reverse XI AS5LIn obverse XI1 AS5Lln reverse XI11 AS6iiKd obverse XIV AS6iiKd reverse Xi. AS6xiUrDZ obverse X\'I AS6xiUrDZ reverse X\' I AS7\.iiUrDZ ob\.erse X\'l AS7viiUrDZ rewrse XI>: AS7ixPd obverse XX AS7ixPd reverse XXI SS5Pd obverse XXlI SS5Pd reverse XXIlI SS5Lkl obverse XXIV SS5Lk1 reverse XXV SS6Ab obverse XXVI SS6Ab reverse XXVII SS7Aak observe XXVIII SS7Aak reverse XXIX NBC 253 (S36) XXX N BC 228 (S44) obverse xi i PLATES Text Code (Cop~lisr) Copy Sequence or Museunl Plate* h'uniher Number Number Acknowledgments XXXl NBC 228 (S44) reverse XXXll MLC 1978 (AS4) obverse XXXlIl MLC 1978 (AS4) reverse XXXlV NBC 244 (AS6) ob~erse xxxv NBC 244 (AS6) reverse XXXVl NBC 246 (Asr) XXXVll NBC 10802 + 10803 (SS4) obverse XXXVIll RTBC I0802 + 10803 (SS4) reverse XXXlX NBC 237 (SS5) XL NBC 6653 (SS8) XLI YBC 1397 (n.d.) obverse XLlI YBC 1397 (n.d.) reverse *.A11 coples except ar indicated are h! DCS. For measurements and descript~onsof accounts see Table 5. +.Another cop! of the text produced earlier h!. Carl H. Lager was used In th~sstud!.: u hen II uab made. the Iru ua>in somewhat better cond~t~onthan when Stephens copied it. The Lager cop! u~llbe puhi~shecIn a Iolume In the )uic, Orrruiai Srrie.\, tlah1.lor71atlTcr.\-1.5. Patricia Sayaka Gustafson helped immeasurably in the development of this study. Finally it is a pleasure to thank Charles Grench of Yale University Press Abbreviations and Ulla Kasten, Museum Editor of the Yale Babylonian Collection, for their care in preparing the manuscript for the press. It should be noted that I was unable to incorporate material that ap- peared after the spring of 1979. Bibliographic abbreviations are according to R. Borger, Handhurh der Keilschriftliteratur 1-2 (Berlin, 1967, 1975) with the following additions, deviations, and clarifications: AV Anniversary Volume CBS Museum number for text in NA TN CHEU See Borger under Contenau, Contribution Gregoire Archives administratives sumeriennes. Paris, 1970. KWU See Borger under Schneider. Keilschrifizeichen Ur 111. LAK See Borger under Deimel. M L'.V Materiali per il Vocaholario ,Veo-Surnerico. Rome. 1974-. N Museum number for text in h'AT.V .VA TIY D. Owen. ,Veo-Sumerran Archi~dTexrs Primorill. From .Vippur (forthcoming). .VCT N. Forde. .Vehraska Cunefirm Texts. Lawrence. Kansas. 1967. .\-I k See Borger under Nikol'skij, DV 5. .VR L'N M. Cig and H. IGzilyay. K~usumerisrheRerhrs- und I'er- ~t~a/rurrgsurkundenaus .Vippur 1. Istanbul. 1965. .VS G See Borger under Falkenstein. NSGC'. SACT S. Kang. Sumeriun and Akkadian Cuneiform Tests 1. 2. Ur- bana. Illinois, 1972, 1973. Smrth See under C. Gordon. S TA See under Chiera. SA See under Jean, Sumer er Akkad. TM H C See Borger under Pohl. TMH NF 1 2. TRI' See under Legrain. L;D U See under Contenau, Umma sous la dwastie d'lir. UM Museum number for text in NAThT U'MA H See Borger 2 under Sauren. All text citations are given in abbreviated form and give usually only the first line of the entry discussed. In addition to bibliographic abbreviations the use of many tables has necessitated several abbreviations throughout this study. They fall under the following rubrics and are grouped together in the list below: 1. Dates. Regnal eras are abbreviated S for Sulgi, AS for Amar-Suen, SS for Su-Sin, and IS for Ibbi-Sin. 2. Measures. The abbreviation m stands for mana, g for gin. S for Se. and s for sila. The values of the weights are approximately established by K vi ABBREVIATIONS ABBREVIATIONS xvii preserved Ur I11 weights; they tend to weigh around 500 grams per man a. By exception silver values in Table 1 have been given in gin and Se to and the gin may weigh about 8.33 grams.' case comparison with cal-lier studies. Table 4, derived from Table 1, is pre- The volume of the sila measure is still not known though it approxi- sented only in gin. mates a quart. Thureau-Dangin, RA 9 (1912): 24f., reconstructed a Neo- Transliteration is according to R. Labat, Manuel d'~pigraphieakka- Babylonian sila container from Susa and found it held .81 1; his calcula- tliiwt7c~.3rd edition (Paris. 1959). except that h has usually been replaced tions for a passage of Entemena had shown the sila held only .47 I, and with h, for typographic simplicity. another Susan example held .38 1. Working from an Old Babylonian mathematics text. he found that there the sila must be equivalent to .97 1, LIST OF NON-BIBLIOGRAPHIC ABBREVIATIONS RA 34 (1937): 80 86. Salonen's confident equation of the sila to .84 I, Hausgerate 1, p. 291, is premat~re.~The kuS "ell, cubit" in the Old A account reconstructed m man a, weight measure Babylonian period is equivalent to about 50 cm (CAD A2 75a). For the Aak A-a-kal-la MB Middle Babylonian Period weights and capacity measures that occur in the texts studied hcl-e see the Ah Ab-ba-gi-na n. number Metrological Tables below. Ac 11 Achaemenid and Seleucid N Nippur 3. Names. Personal names of the subscribers of silver balanced accounts Periods NB Neo-Babylonian Period are abbreviated in the tables and appendices as are some common account- Ag A-gu ndb nig-dabs "thing taken" ing terms.