The organization of agricultural work in Mesopotamia was quite complex. In this paper I will attempt to provide a possible reconstruction of some aspects of this organization in Northern Mesopotamia during the Old Babylonian period, based on administrative documents kept in the British Museum, which I have personally been studying, as well as previously published documents. The texts taken into account refer especially to the period of the First Dynasty of Babylonia, from the reign of Hammurabi (17921750 B.C.) until the reign of Samsu-ditana (1625-1595 B.C.). I will initially present an overview of the most important studies, then the typologies of texts I have analyzed, focusing on the dockets, on their features and on the data they provide. The dockets will then be compared to contracts and lists in order to better understand the duties and tasks of the people mentioned. Finally, the dockets, contracts and lists will be used for reconstructing some aspects of the management of agricultural work, especially for providing some enlightenment on the hierarchical organization of the arable land. This article is part of the paper I presented at the Oxford Postgraduate Conference in Assyriology (OPCA) 2016, Oxford 15th-16th April 2016, which was entitled: “Reconstructing the organisation of Old-Babylonian Mesopotamian sheepfarming and agricultural labour through dockets”.

"Reconstructing the Organization of Old-Babylonian Agricultural Labour Through Dockets"

Annunziata Rositani
2017-01-01

Abstract

The organization of agricultural work in Mesopotamia was quite complex. In this paper I will attempt to provide a possible reconstruction of some aspects of this organization in Northern Mesopotamia during the Old Babylonian period, based on administrative documents kept in the British Museum, which I have personally been studying, as well as previously published documents. The texts taken into account refer especially to the period of the First Dynasty of Babylonia, from the reign of Hammurabi (17921750 B.C.) until the reign of Samsu-ditana (1625-1595 B.C.). I will initially present an overview of the most important studies, then the typologies of texts I have analyzed, focusing on the dockets, on their features and on the data they provide. The dockets will then be compared to contracts and lists in order to better understand the duties and tasks of the people mentioned. Finally, the dockets, contracts and lists will be used for reconstructing some aspects of the management of agricultural work, especially for providing some enlightenment on the hierarchical organization of the arable land. This article is part of the paper I presented at the Oxford Postgraduate Conference in Assyriology (OPCA) 2016, Oxford 15th-16th April 2016, which was entitled: “Reconstructing the organisation of Old-Babylonian Mesopotamian sheepfarming and agricultural labour through dockets”.
2017
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11570/3149998
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