Sumerian Agriculture and Land Management

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the agricultural landscape and the administration of fields,as well as agricultural procedures and production in the late third millennium, in particular in the period of the Third Dynasty of Ur.1 Other important forms of subsistence, such as pastoralism or horticulture, were organised and structured very differently in ancient Sumer, and will not be considered here. The Third Dynasty of Ur, or the Ur III state, refers to a ruling dynasty based in the city of Ur and their shortlived territorial state during the last century of the millennium. The Ur III period is often described as an extremely administrative and bureaucratic period of time with an unprecedented level of central authority. There is no denying that the administration and bureaucracy of this period was extensive and very well developed. However, it should be stated that this period was not all that different from both earlier and later periods, and it is clear that a large part of the organisation of the Ur III state rested on already established principles in ancient Mesopotamia, and this is especially true for agricultural procedures and production levels. Nevertheless, the roughly one hundred years of the Third Dynasty of Ur represent a period that is extremely well documented. In fact, with over 90,000 cuneiform tablets documenting the administrative affairs of the state published to date, and tens of thousands of additional tablets kept in museums and private collections around the world awaiting publication, the Ur III state is, at least from a purely quantitative point of view, the best documented era in the entire history of ancient Mesopotamia.