Farming in Ancient Mesopotamia: Land, Work, Methods | Middle East And North Africa

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FARMING IN ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA

There were two main classes of free workmen in ancient Babylonia, the skilled artisan and the agricultural laborer. The agricultural character of the Babylonian state, and the fact that so many of the peasantry possessed land of their own, prevented the agriculturist from sinking into that condition of serfdom and degradation which the existence of slavery would otherwise have brought about. In spite, therefore, of the fact that so much of the labor of the country was performed by slaves, agriculture was in high esteem and the free agriculturist was held in honor. Tradition told how Sargon of Akkad, the hero of ancient Babylonia, had been brought up by Akki the irrigator, and had himself been a gardener. At the same time there was a tendency for the free laborer to degenerate into a serf, attached to the soil of the farm on which he and his forefathers had been settled for centuries. [Source: “Babylonians And Assyrians: Life And Customs”, Rev. A. H. Sayce, Professor of Assyriology at Oxford, 1900]

Claude Hermann and Walter Johns wrote in the Encyclopedia Britannica:“Landowners frequently cultivated their land themselves but might employ a husbandman or let it. The husbandman was bound to carry out the proper cultivation, raise an average crop and leave the field in good tilth. In case the crop failed the Code fixed a statutory return. Land might be let at a fixed rent when the Code enacted that accidental loss fell on the tenant. If let on share-profit, the landlord and tenant shared the loss proportionately to their stipulated share of profit. If the tenant paid his rent and left the land in good tilth, the landlord could not interfere nor forbid subletting. [Source: Claude Hermann Walter Johns, Babylonian Law — The Code of Hammurabi. Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, 1910-1911]

“Waste land was let to reclaim, the tenant being rent-free for three years and paying a stipulated rent in the fourth year. If the tenant neglected to reclaim the land the Code enacted that he must hand it over in good tilth and fixed a statutory rent. Gardens or plantations were let in the same ways and under the same conditions; but for date-groves four years' free tenure was allowed. The metayer system was in vogue, especially on temple lands. The landlord found land, labour, oxen for ploughing and working the watering-machines, carting, threshing or other implements, seed corn, rations for the workmen and fodder for the cattle. The tenant, or steward, usually had other land of his own. If he stole the seed, rations or fodder, the Code enacted that his fingers should be cut off. If he appropriated or sold the implements, impoverished or sublet the cattle, he was heavily fined and in default of payment might be condemned to be torn to pieces by the cattle on the field. Rent was as contracted.”

Typical Farm in Ancient Babylonia

A contract dated in the first year of Cyrus records the lease of a farm near Sippara, which belonged to the temple of the Sun-god, and was let to a private individual by the chief priest and the civil governor of the temple. The farm contained 60 gur of arable land, and the lease of it included “12 oxen, 8 peasants, 3 iron plough-shares, 4 axes, and sufficient grain for sowing and for the support of the peasants and the cattle.” [Source: “Babylonians And Assyrians: Life And Customs”, Rev. A. H. Sayce, Professor of Assyriology at Oxford, 1900]

Here the peasants are let along with the land, and presumably would have been sold with it had the farm been purchased instead of being let. They were, in fact, irremovable from the soil on which they had been born. It must, however, be remembered that the farm was the property of a temple, and it is possible that serfdom was confined to land which had been consecrated to the gods. In that case the Babylonian serfs would have corresponded with the Hebrew Nethinim, and might have been originally prisoners of war.

We learn some details of early agricultural life in Babylonia from the fragments of an old Sumerian work on farming which formed one of the text-books in the Babylonian schools. Passages were extracted from it and translated into Semitic for the use of the students, and difficult words and expressions were noted and explained. The book seems to have resembled the “Works and Days” of the Greek poet Hesiod, except that it was not in verse. We gather from it that the agricultural year began, not with Nisan, or March, but with Tisri, or September, like the Jewish civil year; at all events, it was then that the tenure of the farmer began and that his contract was drawn up with the landlord. It was then, too, after the harvest, that he took possession of the land, paying his tax to the government, repairing or making the fences, and ploughing the soil.

His tenure was of various kinds. Sometimes he undertook to farm the land, paying half the produce of it to the landlord or his agent and providing the farming implements, the seeds, and the manure himself. Sometimes the farm was worked on a co-operative system, the owner of the land and the tenant-farmer entering into partnership with one another and dividing everything into equal shares. In this case the landlord was required to furnish carts, oxen, and seeds. At other times the tenant received only a percentage of the profits — a third, a fourth, a fifth, or a tenth, according to agreement. He had also to pay the esrâ or tithe.

Farm Work in Ancient Mesopotamia

sickle blade set in bitumen from Akkad

Ploughing, harrowing, sowing, reaping, and threshing constituted the chief events of the agricultural year. The winters were not cold, and the Babylonian peasant was consequently not obliged to spend a part of the year indoors shivering over a fire. In fact fuel was scarce in the country; few trees were grown in it except the palm, and the fruit of the palm was too valuable to allow it to be cut down. When the ordinary occupations of the farmer had come to an end, he was expected to look after his farm buildings and fences, to build walls and clean out the ditches.[Source: “Babylonians And Assyrians: Life And Customs”, Rev. A. H. Sayce, Professor of Assyriology at Oxford, 1900]

The ditches, indeed, were more important in Babylonia than in most other parts of the world. Irrigation was as necessary as in Egypt, though for a different reason. The Chaldean plain had originally been a marsh, and it required constant supervision to prevent it from being once more inundated by the waters and made uninhabitable. The embankments which hindered the overflow of the Euphrates and Tigris and kept them within carefully regulated channels, the canals which carried off the surplus water and distributed it over the country, needed continual attention. Each year, after the rains of the winter, the banks had to be strengthened or re-made and the beds of the canals cleared out. The irrigator, moreover, was perpetually at work; the rainy season did not last long, and during the rest of the year the land was dependent on the water supplied by the rivers and canals. Irrigation, therefore, formed a large and important part of the farmers' work, and the bucket of the irrigator must have been constantly swinging. Without the irrigator the labors of the farmer would have been of little avail.

The hours of work doubtless lasted from sunrise to sunset, though we have a curious document of the Macedonian period, dated in the reign of Seleucus II., in which certain persons sell the wages they receive for work done in a temple during the “sixth part” of a day. The sum demanded was as much as 65 shekels.

Some of the songs have been preserved to us with which the Babylonian laborer beguiled his work in the fields. They probably formed part of the treatise on agriculture which has already been described; at any rate, we owe their preservation to the educational text-books, in which they have been embodied, along with Semitic translations of the original Sumerian text. Here is one which the peasants sang to the oxen as they returned from the field: My knees are marching, My feet are not resting; Taking no thought, Drive me home. In a similar strain the ploughman encouraged his team with the words: A heifer am I, To the mule I am yoked. Where is the cart? Go, look for grass; It is high, it is high! Or again, the oxen, while threshing, would be addressed with the refrain: Before the oxen, As they walk, Thresh out the grain.

Paying Farm Workers and Slaves in Ancient Mesopotamia

The tenant was furthermore expected to pay the laborers their wages, and the landlord had the power of dismissing him if the terms of the contract were not fulfilled. The laborers were partly slaves, partly freemen, the freemen hiring themselves out at so much a month. A contract of the age of Hammurabi, for instance, states that a certain Ubaru, had thus hired himself out for thirty days for half a shekel of silver, or 1s. 6d., but he had to offer a guarantee that he would not leave his master's service before the expiration of the month. [Source: “Babylonians And Assyrians: Life And Customs”, Rev. A. H. Sayce, Professor of Assyriology at Oxford, 1900]

In other cases it was a slave whose services were hired from his owner; thus, in a document from Sippara, of the same age as the preceding, we read: “Rimmon-bani hires Sumi-izitim as a laborer for his brother, for three months, at a wage of one shekel and a half, 3 measures of grain and 1½ qa of oil. There shall be no withdrawal from the agreement. Ibni-A-murru and Sikni-Ea have confirmed it. Rimmon-bani hires the laborer in the presence of Abum-ilu (Abimael), the son of Ibni-Samas, Ilisu-ibni, the son of Igas-Rimmon, and Arad-Bel, the son of Akhuwam. (Dated) the first day of Sivan.” The wages evidently went to the slave, so that he was practically in the position of a free laborer.

When we come down to a later period, we find in contract, dated at the end of the second year of a Cyrus, Bunene-sar-uzur, “the son of Sum- yukin,” hired, as a servant for a year, “from the month Nisan to the month Adar,” for 3 shekels of silver. These were paid beforehand to a third person, and the payment was duly witnessed and registered. Bunenesar-uzur was not a slave, though 9 shillings does not seem much as wages for a whole year. However, three years later only 1 pi, or about 50 quarts of meal, were given for a month's supply of food to some men who were digging a canal.

Farmers Instructions, Gods and the Agricultural Seasons of Mesopotamia

The Sumerians produced a 111-line text called The Farmer´s Instructions. consisting of instructions on annual agriculture duties addressed by a farmer to his son. D. T. Potts (1997) has argued that there are many similarities between traditional, pre-mechanized agriculture in Iraq and the agricultural cycle and the recommendations found in "The Farmer´s Instructions". [Source: Lishtar based on the first part of the excellent chapter on the Akitu Festival by Mark Cohen´s “The Cultic Calendars of the Ancient Near East,” CDL Press, Bethesda, Maryland, 1993]

Generally, fallow land was followed flooded and leached in spring and summer, and ploughed and sowed in the autumn and winter, while cultivated fields were harvested and threshed in the dry and hot spring and summer, following the relatively wet fall and winter. The Spring Equinox marked the beginning of the season when fallow land was washed to cleanse the soil of salt and impurities. The Autumn Equinox marked the beginning of harvest. For cultivated fields, the Spring Equinox marked the beginning of harvest, whereas the Autumn Equinox marked the fallowing season. Morris Jastrow said: “Festival days sacred to a deity were numerous and formed another important feature of worship. As was to be expected of an agricultural people like the ancient Babylonians, these festivals were connected originally with the seasons of the year. The most important was the spring festival. [Source: Morris Jastrow, Lectures more than ten years after publishing his book “Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria” 1911 ]

“The Babylonians and Assyrians must have had harvest festivals, marked like those of other people by rejoicings and thanksgivings to the gods, but as yet we have not unearthed these rites and ceremonies. We are, however, fortunate enough to know a good deal about a festival that forms a complement to the new year’s celebration and, because of its antiquity and wide bearings on the general religious ideas of the Semites, commands a special interest.

“The sun-god of the spring was pictured as a youthful warrior triumphing over the storms of winter. The goddess of vegetation—Ishtar, under various names—unites herself to this god, and the two in unison—sun and earth—bring forth new life in the fields and meadows. But after a few months the summer season begins to wane, and rains and storms again set in. The change of seasons was depicted as due to the death of the youthful god; according to one tradition he was deserted by the goddess who had won his love; according to another, he was slain by a wild boar. An old Sumerian designation of this god was Dumu-Zi, abbreviated from a fuller designation, Dumu-Zi-Ab-zu, and interpreted as “the legitimate [or “faithful”] child of the deep.” The allusion is apparently to the sun rising out of the ocean, which was supposed to flow about and underneath the world. The name passed over to the Semites of Babylonia, and thence spread throughout and beyond the borders of Semitic settlements under the form Tammuz. With the name, went the myth of the youthful god, full of vigour, but who is slain, and condemned to a sojourn in the lower world, from which he is released and revivified in the following spring.

“Farmer's Instructions on Ploughing and Preparing the Fields

plowing in ancient Egypt

In the Sumeria text “Farmer's Instructions,” Ud-ul-uru (Old man cultivator) advises his son: “When you have to prepare a field, inspect the levees, canals and mounds that have to be opened. When you let the flood water into the field, this water should not rise too high in it. At the time that the field emerges from the water, watch its area with standing water; it should be fenced. Do not let cattle herds trample there. [Source: J.A. Black, G. Cunningham, E. Robson, and G. Zlyomi 1998, 1999, 2000, Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, Oxford University, piney.com]

“After you cut the weeds and establish the limits of the field, level it repeatedly with a thin hoe weighing two-thirds of a mina (approx. 650 g). Let a flat hoe erase the oxen tracks, let the flied be swept clean. A maul should flatten the furrow bottoms of the area. A hoe should go round the four edges of the field. Until the field is dry it should be smoothed out.

“Your implements should be ready. The parts of your yoke should be assembled. Your new whip should hang from a nail — the bindings of the handle of your old whip should be repaired by artisans. The adze, drill and saw, your tools and your strength, should be in good order. Let braided thongs, straps, leather wrappings and whips be attached securely. Let your sowing basket be checked, and its sides made strong. What you need for the field should be at hand. Inspect your work carefully.

“The plough oxen will have back-up oxen. The attachments of ox to ox should be loose. Each plough will have a back-up plough. The assigned task for one plough is 180 iku (approx. 65 ha), but if you build the implement at 144 iku (approx. 52 ha), the work will be pleasantly performed for you. 180 sila of grain (approx. 180 litres) will be spent on each 18 iku area (approx. 6 1/2 ha).

“After working one plough's area with a bardil plough, and after working the bardil plough's area with a tugsig plough, till it with the tuggur plough. Harrow once, twice, three times. When you flatten the stubborn spots with a heavy maul, the handle of your maul should be securely attached, otherwise it will not perform as needed.”

“Farmer's Instructions” on Planting

The “Farmer's Instructions” continue: “When your field work becomes excessive, you should not neglect your work; no one should have to tell anyone else: "Do your field work!". When the constellations in the sky are right, do not be reluctant to take the oxen force to the field many times. The hoe should work everything. When you have to work the field with the seeder-plough, your plough should be properly adjusted. Put a leather sealing on the kacu of your plough. Provide your beam with narrow pegs. Your boards should be spread. Make your furrows. [Source: J.A. Black, G. Cunningham, E. Robson, and G. Zlyomi 1998, 1999, 2000, Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, Oxford University, piney.com]

“Make eight furrows per ninda of width (approx. 6 m); the barley will lodge in more closely spaced furrows. When you have to work the field with the seeder-plough, keep your eye on the man who drops the seed. The grain should fall two fingers deep (approx. 3 1/2 cm). You should put one gij of seed per ninda (approx. 3 ml/m). If the barley seed is not being inserted into the hollow of the furrow, change the wedge of your plough share. If the bindings become loose, tighten them.

“Where you have made vertical furrows, make slanted furrows, and where you have made slanted furrows, make vertical furrows. Straight furrows will give you edges that are wide enough and nice . Your crooked furrows should be straightened out. Make the furrows clear. Plough your portion of field. The clods should be picked out. The furrows should be made wide where the soil is open, and the furrows should be narrower where the soil is clogged: it is good for the seedlings.

“After the seedlings break open the ground, perform the rites against mice. Turn away the beaks of small birds. When the plants overflow the narrow bottoms of the furrows, water them with the water of the first seed. When the plants resemble a ...... reed mat, water them. Water the plants when they are heading. When the plants are fully leafed out, do not water them or they will become infected by leaf rust. When the barley is right for husking, water it. It will provide a yield increase of one sila per ban (approx. 1 litre in 10).”

“Farmer's Instructions” on Harvesting

The last part of the “Farmer's Instructions” goes: “When you have to reap the barley, do not let the plants become overripe. Harvest at the right time. One man is to cut the barley, and one to tie the sheaves; and one before him should apportion the sheaves: three men should harvest for you. Do not let those who gather the barley bruise the grain. They should not scatter the grain when it is in the stacks. [Source: J.A. Black, G. Cunningham, E. Robson, and G. Zlyomi 1998, 1999, 2000, Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, Oxford University, piney.com]

“Your daily work starts at daybreak. Gather your force of helpers and grain gatherers in sufficient number and lay down the sheaves. Your work should be carefully done. Although they have been having stale coarse flour, do not let anyone thresh for your new bread — let the sheaves have a rest. The rites for the sheaves should be performed daily. When you transport your barley, your barley carriers should handle small amounts .

“Mark the limits of a vacant lot of yours. Establish properly your access paths to it. Your waggons should be in working order. Feed the waggon's oxen. Your implements should be ....... Let your prepared threshing floor rest for a few days. When you open the threshing floor, smooth its surface . When you thresh, the teeth of your threshing sledge and its leather straps should be secured with bitumen. When you make the oxen trample the grain, your threshers should be strong. When your grain is spread on the ground, perform the rites of the grain not yet clean.

“When you winnow, put an intelligent person as your second winnower. Two people should work at moving the grain around. When the grain is clean, lay it under the measuring stick. Perform the rites in the evening and at night. Release the grain at midday. Instructions of the god Ninurta, son of Enlil — Ninurta, faithful farmer of Enlil, your praise be good!”

Cumunda Grass

The story of Cumunda Grass goes: 1-13 The abba instructed, the abba instructed: When the rain rained, when walls were demolished, when it rained potsherds and fireballs, when one person confronted another defiantly, when there was copulation — he also copulated, when there was kissing — he also kissed. When the rain said: "I will rain," when the wall said: "I will rain (scribal error for 'demolish' ?)", when the flood said: "I will sweep everything away" — Heaven impregnated , Earth gave birth, she gave birth also to the cumunda grass. Earth gave birth, Heaven impregnated , she gave birth also to the cumunda grass. [Source: J.A. Black, G. Cunningham, E. Robson, and G. Zlyomi 1998, 1999, 2000, Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, Oxford University, piney.com]

“14-28 His luxuriant reeds carry fire. They who defied it, who defied it, the umma who had survived that day, the abba who had survived that day, the chief gala priest who had survived that year, whoever had survived the Flood — the cumunda grass crushed them with labour, crushed them with labour, made them crouch in the dust. The cumunda grass is a fire carrier, he cannot be tied into bundles, the grass cannot be shifted, the grass cannot be loosened, the grass cannot be loosened. When built into a booth, one moment he stands up, one moment he lies down. Having kindled a fire, he spreads it wide. The cumunda grass's habitat is among his bitter waters. He butts about (saying): "I will start, I will start a fire".

“29-49 He set fire to the base of the E-ana; there he was bound, there he was fettered. When he protested, Inana seized a raven there and set it on top of him. The shepherd abandoned his sheep in their enclosure. Inana seized the raven there. When the rain had rained, when walls had been demolished, when it rained potsherds and fireballs, when Dumuzid was defied — the rain rained, walls were demolished, the cowpen was demolished, the sheepfold was ripped out, wild flood-waters were hurled against the rivers, wild rains were hurled against the marshes. By the ...... of the Tigris and Euphrates, of the Tigris and the Euphrates, long grass grew, long grass .......

“50-59 He tied him into bundles, he shifted him, he ...... cumunda grass, the fire-carrier. He bundled up the cumunda grass, the fire carrier, bundled up the fire carrier. The launderer who made her garments clean asks her, Inana — the carpenter who gave her the spindle to hold in her hand (asks her), Inana — the potter who fashioned pots and jugs (asks her), Inana. The potter gave her holy drinking vessels, the shepherd brought her his sheep, the shepherd brought her his sheep — he asks her. He brought her all kinds of luxuriant plants, as if it were the harvest.

“60-66 Her voice reached Heaven, her voice reached Earth, her resounding cry covered the horizon like a garment, was spread over it like a cloth, she hurled fierce winds at the head of the cumunda grass (saying): "Cumunda grass, your name ....... You shall be a plant ....... You shall be a hateful plant ....... Your name ......."”

Tenure and Ownership of Agriculture Land in Ancient Mesopotamia

The most common form of tenure seems to have been that in which a third of the produce went to the lessor. Two-thirds of the rent, paid either in dates or in their monetary equivalent, was delivered to the landlord on the last day of the eighth month, Marchesvan, where the dates had been gathered and had been laid out to dry. By the terms of the lease the tenant was called upon to keep the farm buildings in order, and even to erect them if they did not exist. His own house was separate from that in which the farm-servants lived, and it was surrounded by a garden, planted for the most part with date-palms. If the farm-buildings were not built or were not kept in proper repair a fine was imposed upon him, which in the case quoted by the writer of the agricultural work was 10 shekels, or 30s. [Source: “Babylonians And Assyrians: Life And Customs”, Rev. A. H. Sayce, Professor of Assyriology at Oxford, 1900]

Conquest had brought landed property into the hands of Assyrians in other parts of the Eastern world, and it could be put up to auction at Nineveh, where the proprietors lived. About 660 B.C., for instance, a considerable estate was thus sold in the oasis of Singara, in the centre of Mesopotamia. It lay within the precincts of the temple of Ishtar, and contained a grove of 1,000 young palms. It included, moreover, a field of 2 homers planted with terebinths, house-property extending over 6 homers, a house with a corn-field attached to it, and another house which stood in the grove of Yarkhu, the Moon-god. The whole was sold for 4 shekels of silver “according to the standard of Carchemish,” and the penalty for any infringement of the contract was again to be the payment of a maneh of gold (£90) to the treasury of the goddess Ishtar. When one of the parties to the contract was of Aramean descent, it was usual to add an explanatory docket in Aramaic to the deed of sale. Indeed, this seems to have been sometimes done even where there were no Arameans in the case, so thoroughly had Aramaic become the common language of trade.

Thus in the year of Sennacherib's office as eponym (687 B.C.) we hear of the sale of three shops in Nineveh on the part of a certain Dain-kurban, whose name is written in Aramaic letters on the outer envelope of the deed of sale. Thirty shekels were paid for them, and a fine of 10 manehs imposed upon anyone who should attempt to invalidate the sale. The shops seem to have been situated in the Syrian quarter of the city, as we are told that they were opposite the tenement of Nakharau, “the man of Nahor.” It will have been noticed how frequently it is stated that a “plantation” or grove of palms is attached to the house or field which is rented and sold.

Renting Fields in Ancient Mesopotamia

In the reign of Ammi-zadok, three men rented a field for three years on terms of partnership, agreeing to give the owner during the first two years 1 gur of grain upon each feddan or acre. The whole of the third harvest was to go to the lessees, and the partners were to divide the crop in equal shares “on the day of the harvest.” When we come to the twelfth century B.C., however, the maneh and shekel have been substituted for the crops of the field. Thus we hear of 704 shekels and a fraction being paid for a field which was calculated to produce 3 gur of corn, and of 110 shekels being given for another estate which contained a grove of date-palms and on which 2 gur of grain were sown. How much grain could be grown on a piece of land we can gather from the official reports of the cadastral survey.

Land in Assyria was measured by homers rather than by feddans or acres as in Babylonia. In 674 B.C. an estate of 35 homers, in the town of Sairi, was sold for 5 manehs, any infringement of the contract being punished by a fine of 10 manehs of silver or one of gold, to be paid into the treasury of the temple of Ishtar. We learn incidentally from this that the value of gold to silver at the time was as one to ten. Five years previously 6 homers of land in another small Assyrian town had been let at an annual rent of 1 maneh of silver “according to the standard of Carchemish.”

In the reign of Assur-bani-pal a homer of corn-land was rented for six years for 10 shekels a year. The land was calculated to produce 9 qas of grain, and at the end of the first three years it was stipulated that there should be a rotation of crops. About the same time two fields, enclosing an area of 3 homers, were leased by a certain Rimu-ana-Bel of Beth-Abimelech, whose father's name, Yatanael, shows that he was of Syrian origin. The steward of “the son of a king” took them for six years at an annual rent of 12 shekels. One of the fields contained a well, and yielded 15 qas of grain to each homer. It is stated in the contract that the fields had no mortgage upon them, and that the lessee had a right to the whole of the crop which they produced. It was not in Assyria only that plots of ground could be leased and sold in accordance with the provisions of Assyrian law.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Mesopotamia sourcebooks.fordham.edu , National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, especially Merle Severy, National Geographic, May 1991 and Marion Steinmann, Smithsonian, December 1988, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Discover magazine, Times of London, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, BBC, Encyclopædia Britannica, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Time, Newsweek, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “History of Warfare” by John Keegan (Vintage Books); “History of Art” by H.W. Janson Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.

Last updated July 2024