Travel provisions in Babylonia in the first millennium BC

429

Travel provisions in Babylonia in the fi rst millennium BC 1

Bojana Jankovic, Vienna

The subject of this paper is the system of travel provisions, expressed by the term Ωidºtu 2, as it appears in Babylonian written sources of the Chaldean and Achaemenid periods. Most of the attestations of Ωidºtu stem from the cities of Uruk and Sippar, from the two large archives of the Eanna and Ebabbar temples respectively. The pertinent texts span the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar II (605-562 BC) and his successors down to Darius I (522-486 BC). There is only a very small number of occurrences of this term from other cities and archives 3. The present review will therefore concentrate on the documents from the temple archives of Uruk and Sippar, giving an overview of the types of these texts and the information contained in them, the main emphasis being on the commodities and items issued to the travellers. Two distinct types of travel provisions are attested in the temples, stemming from the profane and the cultic spheres. The latter type, usually designated as Ωidºt ilåni, “travel provisions of the gods”, comes from the context of the divine journeys, i.e. ritual journeys of the gods’ statues to other sanctuaries and cities 4. These ‘travel pro-visions’ were the sustenance of gods when away from home — they substituted for the

1 This paper was written within the framework of the START Project “Economic History of Babylonia

in the First Millennium BC” directed by M. Jursa and funded by the Fonds zur Förderung der

wissenschaftlichen Forschung, Austria. I would like to express my gratitude to M. Jursa, who,

beside commenting on this paper, provided me with numerous text references and translitera-

tions of unpublished tablets from the Ebabbar archive, to J. MacGinnis, who kindly allowed

me to use his unpublished manuscript on the archers of Ebabbar (MacGinnis [forthc.]) and to

quote texts from it, and to P. Corò Capitanio who sent me a preliminary version of her paper

on the travel provisions of the gods read at a conference in Venice. Furthermore, I am thankful

to J. Hackl, W. Henkelman and C. Wunsch for their remarks and references. My gratitude goes

also to H. D. Baker for correcting the English and for her many useful comments.

2 Less frequently the terms Ωudû (NBDMich. 52) and q™m ⁄arråni (GC 1 92, BIN 1 6 ; cf. also the attesta-

tions of zì-kaskal of the gods in the offering lists from Eanna, Freydank 1971 : 152 under Ωidºtu),

literally “fl our of the journey”, are used for travel provisions. For preliminary remarks on travel

provisions in the Neo-Babylonian period see Jursa 1999-2000 : 291 and Bongenaar 1997 : 123.

3 E.g., Camb. 292, BM 33928 (= Abraham 2004 : 339-340 No. 75) + duplicate BM 33957 from the Egibi

archive from Babylon (references courtesy of C. Wunsch) ; UET 4 48, 49, 109 from the Gallåbu

archive from Ur ; PBS 2/1 54, 114, 162, 194, BE 10 61, 62 from the Murašû archive from Nippur ;

OECT 10 260 from Kiš ; BM 29411, BM 96114, BM 102005 from Borsippa.

4 These journeys are particularly well attested in Sumerian literary texts (cf. for instance Sjöberg 1969

for an overview). However, there is also evidence for them in letters and administrative docu-

ments. The Old-Babylonian sources, especially from Mari, have been treated by Finet 1981, but

until now there has been no comprehensive study of the Neo- and Late Babylonian evidence

430 L'archive des Fortifi cations de Persépolis

offerings normally presented to them in their temples. As was the case with regular offer-ings, Ωidºt ilåni were prepared by specially qualifi ed personnel, the prebendary bakers and brewers. As this subject has recently been treated by P. Corò Capitanio [forthc.], it will not be addressed here. This study will concentrate on the texts concerning the ‘secular’ travel provisions.

1 Introduction

Since the main focus of the conference at which this paper was presented was on the archival strategies refl ected by the Persepolis Fortifi cation Tablets it seemed opportune to compare the Babylonian Ωidºtu documents with the travel ration texts appearing among the Fortifi cation Tablets (Hallock’s category Q 5). To be clear from the outset, the Babylonian material does not compare well with the Elamite travel ration texts, and this for several reasons. Category Q of the Fortifi cation texts represents the documentation of way-sta-tions on the Old Persian road network 6. It is the documentation of depots, the purpose of which was to supply specially authorized travellers 7 with provisions, usually for a one-day journey. It will be remembered that the receipts classifi ed as category Q have a fairly uniform composition. The information included is the amount and the commodity issued, the name of the recipient, occasionally followed by his professional title, and the name of the offi cial issuing the provision. The number of consumers of the rations and sometimes their names are also noted in those cases where the travelling party consisted of more than one person and the recipient acted on their behalf. The commodity issued in the majority of cases (79% of texts 8) was fl our. Beer and wine were also issued to the travellers, while grain appears extremely rarely (mostly in texts which also include the fodder rations for pack animals). Knowing the number of travellers and the amount of fl our they received is useful for calculating the rates at which fl our was issued to them. What is more, in most cases the texts explicitly offer this information themselves. The standard day rations ranged from 1 to 1.5 qa of fl our for men and workers (“gentlemen” (šalup) usually received 1.5 qa), 1 qa of fl our for boys or servants and from 1 to 2 qa of fl our or grain for mules 9.

(for preliminary remarks based on the evidence from Eanna see Beaulieu 2003 : 35, 226). The

forthcoming work of Corò Capitanio should shed more light on the subject in this period.

5 PF 1285-1579, 2049-2057, Hallock 1969 : 40-45.

6 Some of the texts name the places at which the travel provisions were issued. Hidalu, Uzikurraš and

Kurdušum appear among these (Hallock 1969 : 40).

7 They carried with them a “sealed document” (halmi in Elamite or *viyåtika- (miyatukkaš) in Old-

Persian) issued by the king or some offi cial, which entitled them to travel provisions (cf. Briant

2002 : 364-365).

8 Hallock 1969 : 41.

9 Hallock 1969 : 42. Cf. also Group S3 (PF 1780-1787), documents which record travel provisions

for animals only. In these texts horses, camels, mules and perhaps cattle appear as recipients

of mostly either grain or fl our. The daily rations of horses range from 3 qa to 1 bar of grain or

fl our. For camels rations of 3 qa and 5 qa are attested (ibid : 50).

431B. Jankovic . Travel provisions in Babylonia

The documentation from the Neo-Babylonian temples is far less uniform (for the types of texts see below) and it does not refl ect the workings of way-stations. In a way- station system the travellers would have typically been provided only with enough food to reach the next station, which would normally have been a day’s ration for a day’s travel. Our documentation, however, shows that they were supplied with the provisions for the entire duration of their journey which could last from several days to several years 10. In most of the instances the temple emerges in fact as the point of departure for temple offi cials and dependants sent on various errands. These errands usually entailed either the procurement of a range of supplies for the temple, such as agricultural products, cattle, silver or raw materials, or construction projects conducted away from the temple and the city. Alternatively, people could be sent on missions in connection with the duties of the temple towards the crown, i.e. on account of tax and military matters. In other words, our Ωidºtu texts give evidence for the provisioning of the temple staff and dependants engaged in exchange and travel between various Babylonian cities, but also different regions in the Middle East, with the temple as the origin of these journeys, not a stop-over 11. This, together with the fact that provisions for the entire duration of the journey were provided, indicates that these travel provision were an extension of the regular ration system, not an elaboration of a way-station system as is found in the Persepolis Fortifi cation Texts.

Despite the lack of evidence for its existence, this is not to say that such a system did not exist in the Neo-Babylonian period. In fact, something comparable to the Persian string of way-stations existed in Mesopotamia already at the end of the third millennium BC, during the Ur III period in the regions of Umma and Girsu (Lagaš). The so-called “messenger texts” record issues of food to individuals or travelling parties heading for or coming from different destinations 12. It is interesting to note that the rations given to the travellers did not vary in size proportionally to the distance of their destination, but rather according to the recipient’s rank. Furthermore, they were the same size as the rations of a person of an equivalent rank provided for a one-day stay in the city. This indicates “that

10 Cf. Dar. 253 for a campaign that lasted three years.

11 Just occasionally there is evidence for the temple provisioning craftsmen (ummânu) who arrived

from other places (usually Babylon), i.e. people who were clearly not members of the temple’s

own household. However, the craftsmen went to other cities and temples in order to conduct

some specialised work for them and were entitled to food sustenance from these institutions for

the duration of their stay. Therefore these special cases do not fall under the category of travel

but rather regular provisions (Bongenaar 1997 : 367-369, Kleber 2005 : 299).

12 On these texts see Sallaberger 1999 : 295-314, with a detailed exposé on the earlier literature on the

subject (Forschungsgeschichte, p. 295-296.). Beer, bread, onions, oil and soda (tè), and some-

times fi sh were issued (Jones and Snyder 1961 : 281, Sallaberger 1999 : 298). Note also the hymn

Šulgi A : 27-35, in which the king of Ur boasts of establishing caravanserais in his kingdom :

“Because I am a powerful man, who rejoices at the strength of his loins, / I moved my legs, pro-

ceeded along the roads of the land, / I determined the DANNAs, built there (lodging-)houses, /

Planted gardens by their side, established resting-places, / Installed in those places experienced

(men) ; / (He) who comes from ‘above’, (he) who comes from ‘below’, / May refresh themselves

in their cool shade¿ ; / The way-farer, who passes the night on the road, / May seek heaven there,

like in a well-built city” (Klein 1981 : 190-193).


the purpose of the rations was merely to provide for a journey to a way-station […] situ-ated probably at the end of one day’s march 13.” The Ur III way-stations should therefore probably be seen as storehouses positioned along the main travel routes, from which further provisions could be obtained. The network of ‘royal roads’ of the Neo-Assyrian empire, temporally closer to the period under consideration here, is to a certain degree comparable 14. It should be noted that the organisation and the structure of the road sta-tions (b™t mard™ti) was not uniform, often simple villages along the road will have served the function of the road stations, and the system did not always function perfectly 15. It is more than probable that something similar existed in the Neo-Babylonian period as well, however, it simply eludes us owing to a lack of pertinent documentation.

2 Texts

References to travel provisions in the archives of Eanna and Ebabbar appear in three gen-eral types of texts : letters, letter orders and administrative documents 16. For one, there were letters written by people stationed away from the temple giving reports to the temple authorities on the progress of the projects they were employed on and frequently complain-ing about the conditions under which they were working, asking for additional supplies of provisions, money and/or labour 17. Only rarely do these letters give specifi c details of the amount and type of provisions, the duration of the project and the number of people for whom the provisions were needed. This kind of information tends to be left out as the addressees of the letters were presumably acquainted with these facts. The reference to travel provisions or rations (kurummatu) in general terms stresses the fact that their size and

13 Jones and Snyder 1961 : 298-299. According to Sallaberger, however, the messenger texts (small

receipts) represent the daily documentation of expenditures of an institution whose purpose

was to provide food provisions for people travelling through. In fact, most of the attested

rations were intended to be consumed more or less immediately by travellers making a stop at

the station. The actual travel provisions, which are much less common, are different in their

composition from the ‘stop-over’ provisions. For instance, beer extract (dida), presumably a

dry product which could be mixed with water as needed, was provided to people on the go

as opposed to beer, which was the beverage regularly issued to people for a stay in the city

(Sallaberger 1999 : 297-298).

14 However, the sources (mainly letters from the state archives) from which the evidence for this net-

work is drawn limit the scope for comparison. For the Neo-Assyrian royal roads in general see,

for instance, Kessler 1997 with references to earlier literature on the subject (p. 129).

15 Kessler 1997 : 133-136, esp. 135. For the relay-stations on the Neo-Assyrian royal roads see now also

Favaro 2007 : 67-72.

16 In the texts from the private archives travel provisions may also be the subject of legal documents

(debt notes : PBS 2/1 114, 162, 194, BE 10 61, 62 ; contracts : PBS 2/1 54, UET 4 48, 49, 109).

17 Cf., for instance, the dossier comprised of the letters written to the higher offi cials of the temple

administration by the overseer of the temple oblates (rab širk™), Innin-a⁄⁄™-iddin, edited and

discussed by Stolper 2003.


composition were, at least on these occasions, standardised. As a consequence these letters are of limited value for understanding and quantifying the travel provision system, not-withstanding the interesting circumstantial evidence concerning travel and fi eld service.

Another group of texts in which provisions for travellers appear are the letter orders (cf. MacGinnis 1995 ; Bongenaar 1997 : 16). The letter orders were usually sent by higher offi cials of the temple administration (the administrator, the resident and/or temple scribes) to offi cials in charge of storehouses or to persons responsible for collection of revenues, e.g., rent farmers (ša mu⁄⁄i sªti), tithe collectors (ša mu⁄⁄i ešrê) and so on, i.e. people who had at their disposal signifi cant amounts of the temple’s agricultural produce which was kept apart from the central storage facilities 18. The letters instructed them to give out specifi ed amounts of commodities, usually agricultural staples, to certain named individuals. Thus authorised to withdraw certain commodities, these people went to the issuing offi cials carrying the letter orders with them 19. The issues were made for various purposes, most commonly prebendary payments and rations. Though the texts usually do not use the term Ωidºtu specifi cally, it is often stated that the commodities (barley, dates, fl our or cress) were intended for people travelling to other cities (e.g., Babylon, Cutha) or for workers stationed away from the temple and the city (e.g., in Elam) 20. These texts, too, are of limited value for our purposes, as they never give us the complete set of data — they usually omit the information on the duration of the missions and the number of people involved.

More informative are the administrative receipts and accounts. The receipts can be of a simple type, recording just one transaction, i.e. the issue of travel rations to one person or a group of people. They may also record several transactions which can, but need not necessarily, be related. The accounts, which can deal with expenditures of silver, agricul-tural staples or mixed commodities, generally record multiple transactions. The following information may be contained in the receipts and the accounts : amount of commodity issued, name (and title) of the recipient, number of recipients, destination or purpose of journey, duration of journey and supplier of commodity. With the exception of the amount of the commodity all the other information could be either omitted or abbreviated in our texts. If the recipient was a single person, he was usually named in the text. But if

18 MacGinnis 1995 : 19.

19 In this respect the letter orders are reminiscent of the halmi in the Fortifi cation texts. However,

the similarity is restricted to the administrative mechanisms underlying the management of a

decentralised redistributive system. Unlike halmi, the letter orders remained in the keeping of

the issuing offi cial after the commodities had been handed out (no receipts were made for the

recipient) and were brought to the temple as documentation for the settling of accounts. This

is because the letter orders entitled their carriers to a one-off issue of commodities only and

there was no reason for them to keep these letters after the transaction had been completed.

Rather than making a record of the transaction to be brought to the central administration,

like the issuing offi cials of the Persian way-stations did, the Babylonian offi cials in charge of

the decentralised stores simply kept the letter order.

20 Dar. 230 (= LO 24), LO 4, 12, 143, 147, 180. In the letter order NCBT 703 from Uruk the barley

to be issued to two offi cials in charge of the “remainders” brought to the king is specifi cally

designated as Ωidºtu. The barley for the širkus accompanying these two men, however, is des-

ignated as kurummatu.


the travelling party consisted of several individuals these could frequently be subsumed under a general term, such as workers (Ωåbª), without stating their exact number. As a rule, the temple was the supplier of travel provisions in our texts and this was not specifi cally noted. However, in a few cases the individuals making these issues were named. Where they can be identifi ed, it is clear that they were people who had an obligation to deliver their produce to the temple. Bypassing the temple’s central storage facilities, they delivered their products directly to the ultimate consumers ; this was then recorded in these receipts as evidence for the accounts which were later to be settled with them 21.

One of the diffi culties for the evaluation of our sources is the rather imprecise usage of the term Ωidºtu which complicates the delimitation of the pertinent material. Frequently it is substituted by the word for ration (kurummatu). That Ωidºtu and kurum-matu were interchangeable is best demonstrated by a group of texts which record the rations given to the “offi cials in charge of the rations of the king” (ša kurummat šarri). The temple was obliged to send the king certain portions of the sacrifi cial meals offered to the gods. These portions were called either “rations of the king” or “remainders of the king”, since they comprised the remainders of the sacrifi cial meals. One — or more com-monly two — people 22 were entrusted with carrying these remainders to the king (or the crown prince), either to his residence in Babylon or to wherever he was at that particular moment 23. For their journeys, which could last up to several months, they received from the temple rations designated Ωidºtu or kurummatu interchangeably 24.

rikis qabli, “fi tting-out”, is another term which is closely associated with travel provisions. It designated a tax levied by the state for the purpose of furnishing troops of archers or workers sent on campaigns with clothes, weapons, tools, pack animals and other equipment 25. The texts recording the equipping of troops under the heading rikis qabli occasionally included food rations. In Dar. 253 26 the food (cress, salt and oil) is distin-guished from the rest of the equipment and is separately designated as Ωidºtu, but no such distinction is made in BM 64707 (MacGinnis 1998 : 177-178) and BM 68702 (MG). Here the food and the equipment are subsumed under the term rikis qabli.

21 Cf. for instance Lâbåši, the leather-worker, who delivered shoes and other leather utensils for

the outfi tting of archers, workers and craftsmen (BM 63917, Bongenaar 1993 and also in BM

61208).

22 For these people see MacGinnis 1994 : 203-204, 215-216. Cf. also Beaulieu 1989a : 157-159.

23 There is an attestation of the king and his troops in Tyre (Áurru) in GC 1 151. Often these rations

were brought to the expedition camp (madåktu), without further localisation (e.g., CT 56 26,

650, 653).

24 Provisions designated as Ωidºtu : GC 1 405, CT 56 653 (and perhaps 429), OIP 122 107, YOS 19 228,

NCBT 703, YBC 7380, Nbn. 824, BM 79705 (forthcoming in MacGinnis [forthc.], henceforth

abbreviated as MG) ; designated as kurummatu : CT 56 26, 650 (in this text Ωi-di¡-tu appears in

the superscript and kurummatu in the body of the text designating the silver issued) ; without

any particular designation : GC 1 22, 151, UCP 9/1 50, 94, VS 20 60, NCBT 151.

25 For a discussion of this term see van Driel 2002 : 249-253 and Abraham 2004 : 20-32 with note 39 for

earlier literature. rikis qabli in the sources from Ebabbar has been treated by MacGinnis 1998.

26 The text is edited by Joannès 1982a : 18.


Not uncommonly is the term Ωidºtu omitted altogether from the receipts recording issues of provisions for travellers. In its absence the documents can be identifi ed as travel provision texts if they contain clauses which explicitly state that the recipient went to a certain destination, or was sent on a certain errand, or if the commodities issued included woollen blankets, shoes, or the like, which were items typically supplied to travellers. To a lesser extent some of the victuals issued, in particular fl our, cress, salt and oil, could be indicative of travel provisions. However, not only travellers received these foodstuffs, but also, for instance, craftsmen from Babylon who were performing work on the temple, or workmen engaged in some building or irrigation project 27. Often it is just not possible to decide whether a text recording an issue of food (or silver) is travel-related or not, and a number of travel provision texts probably remain disguised as receipts for issues of com-modities for unspecifi ed purposes.

Another problem is posed by the fact that we are seldom given the complete data set necessary for calculating the rates at which the travel provisions were apportioned. Over two hundred texts have been surveyed for this study, but only a fraction of these could in fact be used in this respect. All of these texts appear in the table of provision rates in the Appendix.

3 Recipients

The recipients of the travel provisions are noted in the texts with varying degrees of details. Most commonly they appear by name, with or without a patronymic, but they usually cannot be identifi ed more closely. However, when identifi able, in the majority of cases they are temple dependants or functionaries. Sometimes the personal name is followed by a professional title or a function. Some of the attestations include chiefs of the temple oblates (rab širk™), decurions (rab ešerti), offi cials in charge of the rations of the king (ša mu⁄⁄i kurummat šarri 28), archers (lúban), chiefs of archers (rab qašti), carpenters (naggåru). Beside single individuals, travelling parties are also attested. Among these, groups of people designated as (work) troops (Ωåbª), temple oblates (širkus), workers of the ox or sheep stalls (ša bºt alpº/imm™rº) and ox feeders (mušåkil alpº) appear as recipients of travel provisions. Only rarely is the number of people who make up these groups noted in the texts, but troops of up to 180 men are attested, usually in the context of corvée work 29. Women are so far not attested as recipients of travel provisions, although they were occasionally sent on journeys on behalf of the temple 30.

27 Bongenaar 1997 : 123, 368-369 ; Kleber 2005 : 297-299.

28 In Uruk the same function was probably expressed by ša mu⁄⁄i r™⁄åti (“offi cial in charge of the

remainders”) or ša r™⁄åti ana šarri iššû (“who brought the remainders to the king”). See also

above and note 22.

29 E.g., in UCP 9/2 24, BM 113264, 114558.

30 In a letter from Eanna (NCBT 46 = YOS 21 92) the addressee is instructed to send a woman on a

journey (l. 9-10 : kaskal a-na gìrII šá munussi-lim-a / šu-kun), possibly in connection with the

“well-arranged-basket” (selli tabnºti ; see note 34) which is also mentioned in the text.


4 Purpose of journeys

As already noted, the information contained in our documentation is frequently incom-plete. Thus, often a text might only state that a certain commodity is the travel provision of a certain recipient, without mentioning the destination, the purpose or the duration of his journey. Even when the destination is given (e.g., Babylon, Elam, the steppe), most of the time it is impossible to deduce on what sort of mission the people were being sent.

Nevertheless, a number of Ωidºtu texts inform us more or less explicitly about the purpose of these journeys. More evidence can be gleaned from letters and documents which record issues of rations (kurummatu) for temple dependants stationed away from their home. Without attempting to make an exhaustive catalogue of all the attested desti-nations and missions, one can infer that the motives for these trips fell under two general categories. On the one hand there was the internal business of the temple which needed tending to. On the other, the temple had several obligations towards the crown such as tax-related payments and providing manpower for royal building projects and military service. In both cases this could involve assembling, equipping and deploying troops for work or military missions in various localities or having people transport things from or to the temple.

For the purpose of internal temple business people were sent usually in order to fetch staples and materials needed in the temple which could not be obtained in the city. They were sent for building materials, such as bitumen (e.g., BIN 1 151, GC 1 181, NCBT 802), which could be obtained in ·º† (e.g., CT 55 346, BM 114750), gypsum (PTS 2298), wood 31 (YOS 19 173, NCBT 136, Dar. 112, BM 74617 (Bertin 2046), Nbn. 411, CT 56 235), for agricultural staples (e.g., to Babylon for sesame, YOS 17 271), for silver (to the palace (in Babylon ?), GC 1 208, PTS 3428). Frequently we hear of people being sent for sheep or oxen, usually expressed only using the preposition ana mu⁄⁄i 32.

31 In Ebabbar there were special kinds of carpenters, called “carpenters of Lebanon”, who regularly

went to this region in order to fetch cedar wood for the temple (Bongenaar 1997 : 292-293).

Their travel provisions, or rather their fi tting-out (rikis qabli), as it was termed in the texts,

consisted of barley, dates, cress, salt and silver, and was provided for several consecutive years.

One of these carpenters was given silver to buy a donkey (BM 74409 (Bertin 1289)). Shoes for

the carpenters of Lebanon were delivered by a leather-worker in BM 63917 (Bongenaar 1993).

32 GC 1 311, YOS 6 133, CT 56 384, 706, Nbn. 1054 (RuΩåpu), BM 64043 (MG), BM 65095 (Babylon).

Since there was not enough pasture in the vicinity of the temples, especially during the hot

season, shepherds working for the temple were forced to be on the move with their herds in

search of grazing grounds. As a consequence the temple herds were frequently kept in distant

places. Some of the herds of Ebabbar were, for instance, in RuΩåpu, a place located in present-

day northern Iraq close to the Turkish border (perhaps the whole area equivalent to the prov-

ince RaΩappa known from the Neo-Assyrian sources (Radner 2006 : 52-53) was meant by this

toponym). When the temple needed some of these animals, for instance for offerings (sheep

for regular offerings (sattukku) are mentioned in GC 1 311), people had to be sent to fetch them.

Alternative transactions could also have been implied by some of these tersely formulated texts,

e.g., purchases of livestock or other transactions about which little can be said other than that


The temples also entertained relations with other sanctuaries in Babylonia. Eanna sent barley for the meals of the gods of the Sealand (GC 1 258, 4-5 : 1 ; 2.3 a-na nap-ta-nu/ a-na « diš » dingirmeš šá kur tam-tì), for instance, and the men who carried the barley received Ωidºtu 33.

Other missions the temple personnel were sent on included various work projects termed dullu, “work”. This could refer to anything from agricultural activities to work on the irrigation system to construction works. Very often the high temple offi cial qºpu (“the resident”), who was appointed by the royal administration and placed in the temple, is attested directing various work projects outside the city with a troop of workers recruited from the temple oblates (Bongenaar 1997 : 34-45). There are occasional references in our texts to workers and temple oblates being sent to the qºpu, presumably in order to do work (GC 1 36, 163, 234, YOS 17 197), or transporting things for him (GC 1 92, YOS 17 231). Other high temple offi cials, such as the temple scribe (†upšar bºti) or the administrator (šatammu), were also engaged in directing works away from the temple. There are attesta-tions of issues of travel provisions and rations for workers who were sent to the šatammu or the †upšar bºti (YOS 17 66, GC 1 226, 234, NCBT 775, 950) or who were bringing pro-visions 34 to the †upšar bºti of Eanna who was in Opis 35 some of the time (NCBT 686). Unless otherwise specifi ed, it is not clear whether the projects designated as dullu were initi-ated by the temple or the royal administration 36, as both could be implied by this term.

As for the temple’s obligations toward the king and the journeys connected to them, the people sent to bring him his rations or “the remainders” (of the meals of the gods) have already been mentioned. Various work projects also fall into this category. There are references to temple dependants on expeditions (madåktu) 37, in Áurru 38, Elam (e.g., in Dar. 15, BM 65055 (MG)), La⁄ºru 39, ·umad™šu (TCL 9 85), Ta⁄makka (YOS 3 10), to name but a few. In all of these cases it was the obligation of the temple to rally the troops and supply them with food and clothing for the entire duration of the operation.

they occasionally involved the offi cials rab nikkassº (“chief of accounts”) and rab Ωibti (“offi cial

in charge of the Ωibtu-levy on livestock”) and were sometimes conducted in Babylon. The two

offi cials appear in GC 1 311, CT 56 384 and Nbn. 1054, BM 64043 (MG), respectively. See

Bongenaar (1997 : 130-131, 138) for further details on their functions.

33 For the relations between Eanna and various offi cials from the Sealand see Beaulieu 2002. For

its connections to other sanctuaries, e.g., to the Ebabbar of Larsa or the temple of Nergal in

Udannu, see Beaulieu 1991.

34 The term actually used was selli tabnºti, “the well-arranged-basket”, which probably contained choice

food provisions (perhaps also including the remainders of the food offered to the gods ?). The

king and the crown prince also received selli tabnºti from the temples (Beaulieu 1989a : 188).

35 The šatammu of Eanna is also attested in Opis in YOS 17 66.

36 Cf. for instance dullu ša šarri in UCP 9/2 24. The cases when workers are sent for dullu (NCBT 961),

or when a temple oblate performing dullu receives clothing items (NCBT 99) without further

specifi cation, are ambiguous.

37 E.g., in CT 56 653, CT 57 23, BM 78828 (MG). The exact implications of the term are not clear.

38 Áurru (Tyre) could designate both the settlement of the deportees from Tyre in the vicinity of

Nippur and the Levantine city Tyre (e.g., in GC 1 151 ; Joannès 1982b : 35-40).

39 E.g., in YOS 3 45 ; cf. MacGinnis 2002 : 179-180, Joannès 2005a : 185-187.


5 Provisions

The travel provisions provided by the temple could include a range of staples and processed foods, silver and clothing items, although Ωidºtu must have originally implied only food. Among the victuals supplied one fi nds barley, dates, fl our, cress, oil, salt and rarely beer. The most basic travel provisions consisted of barley (or rarely fl our) and/or dates, just like the normal rations received by the temple dependants. To these, cress seed, salt and oil could be added. Sometimes the basic staples were not issued at all and we only fi nd the triad of cress, salt and oil, occasionally supplemented with silver and/or clothing and other equipment. Cases in which people received only silver from the temple as their travel provisions are not uncommon either. Beside food provisions, travellers were often supplied with clothing and other equipment, in particular shoes, bags and blankets. In addition to this, archers or troops sent on missions of a (semi-)military character were provided with weapons. These items usually crop up in texts recording the equipping of troops under the term rikis qabli 40. On rare occasions we hear of pack animals accompanying the travellers and of issues of fodder alongside the travel provisions for humans.

5.1 Barley and datesBarley and dates were the basis of the ancient Mesopotamian diet. These were the most important staples used in the Neo-Babylonian period as rations for temple dependants and as remuneration for hired labour following an old Mesopotamian tradition. Their frequent appearance as commodities issued as Ωidºtu is not surprising considering that the travel provisions were an extension of the regular ration system in this period. Though ideally the rations/travel provisions should have consisted of both barley and dates, these two staples could be issued interchangeably at a 1:1 rate. We can note, however, that barley seems to have been the preferred commodity issued as travel provisions in Uruk 41, while dates appear more frequently in the relevant texts from Sippar 42. This trend was prob-ably connected to the availability of these staples in the temples, which in turn depended on the agricultural orientation of these institutions. Eanna had more land under cereal cultivation and consequently greater revenues in barley, while Ebabbar focused more on the exploitation of date palm plantations 43.

40 See note 25. The weapons and the equipment of the archers and their organisation in Ebabbar in

general are the subject of a recent study by MacGinnis [forthc.] and will not be dealt with here.

For a list of their weapons and equipment see also Bongenaar 1997 : 133-134. Cf. also Joannès

1982a : 16-18 with references to older literature on the subject.

41 E.g., GC 1 36, 123, 234, 253, 258, GC 2 188, Dillard 20 (FLP 1539), NCBT 151, 703, YBC 7380, 9594,

CT 56 125, Nbn. 1054, BM 78828 (MG), BM 79705 (MG).

42 E.g., in Cyr. 280, Dar. 183. In the following travel related issues of dates, Ωidºtu is not explicitly men-

tioned : CT 56 26, Nbn. 824, BM 60858 (MG), BM 61015 (MG), BM 65055 (MG), BM 66896

(MG), NBC 4642, NCBT 99, GC1 111 and perhaps GC 1 169. In GC 1 111 the dates are stated

to be (in exchange) for fl our.

43 Jursa 1995 : 194. A similar trend has been noted by M. Jursa (this volume) for the regular rations.


These staples could be consumed or exchanged for other foodstuffs. Sometimes they were issued specifi cally as a substitute for another commodity which was not available at the time (e.g., instead of fl our, see note 61). A standard monthly travel ration in Sippar seems to have amounted to 180 litres (i.e. one kor 44) per month of either barley or dates (or both together). This amount, which coincides well with the typical issues of the regu-lar ration system, appears at least four times in the Sippar sample (and once in Uruk ; see Tables 1a and 1b in the Appendix). Additionally, a ration of 120 litres is attested in Sippar. The Uruk sample, however, shows a greater variety of rates. The smallest identifi able ration so far attested was 60 litres of barley per month (YOS 3 69). Other rates such as 72 litres, 90 litres, slightly over 100 litres and once also 180 litres are attested. In just one text from Uruk three different ration rates occur (NCBT 686 : fi ve people receive 72 litres, twelve people 90 litres and two people 105 litres each) 45. The 90-litre ration was the most com-mon and was probably the norm in Uruk. The slightly larger rations may have been based on the 90-litre standard, possibly with the inclusion of additional expenses.

The explanation for the different rates of these basic rations may be found, in part, in the different ranks of the recipients 46. In NCBT 686 the larger rations all go to spe-cifi cally named individuals while the smaller ones (72 litres) are provided to the groups of unnamed temple oblates (širkus). Though we are not informed about the functions or professions of the people in this text, the fact that certain people are named while others are not suggests that the former ones had a higher degree of responsibility in the mission they were engaged in and consequently a higher status than the anonymous, unspecialised širkus. The recipients of the 60-litre rations in YOS 3 69 are also širkus engaged together with hirelings on some unspecifi ed work (dullu). However, it should be noted that tem-ple oblates received bigger rations as well. Thus they were entitled to slightly more than 90 litres of barley (91.12) according to UCP 9/2 24 47. Other work gangs (Ωåbª), of albeit unspecifi ed composition, received even larger amounts of barley : 101.25 litres in BM 114558 and 101.6 litres in BM 113264. These rations, however, could have been based on the 90-litre standard if one assumes that additional staff, craftsmen, overseers, etc., who are not mentioned in the texts but appear in the comparable UCP 9/2 24, were to be provisioned

44 In the Neo-Babylonian period 1 gur (kurru) = 5 pi (pånu) = 30 bán (sªtu) = 180 sìla (qû). Although

the absolute value of 1 sìla is slightly less than a litre (ca. 0.97 litres), Powell’s recommendation

(1984 : 33) to use the conventional approximation 1 sìla = 1 litre is followed here. (The regular

mašº⁄u is taken to hold a capacity of 36 litres in Ebabbar (Jursa 1995 : 151) and 45 litres in Eanna

according to Beaulieu 1989b.) For the purpose of calculations it is assumed that a Babylonian

month had 30 days.

45 The text records ten different issues of (travel) rations for groups of people either sent to the offi cial

†upšar bºti, or sent by him to Babylon. The †upšar bºti was apparently in some place away from

Uruk, and at least some of the time in Opis. The commodities issued included barley, dates

and silver.

46 Another (partial) explanation could be the existence and the size of a family which needed to be

supported by the recipient’s rations. For further details see below.

47 1,300 kor of barley were provided for a period of one year for 214 people (actually 213 people of

which one was entitled to a double ration).


as well 48. But the workers (Ωåbª) sent to ·umad™šu (TCL 9 85) were to receive rations of even 180 litres per month (one half in barley and the other in dates). Other factors, unfathomable at present, must have also affected the rates at which barley and dates were issued.

Another question worth asking is : Could these different rations satisfy the dietary needs and, in general, costs of living of a Babylonian traveller ? First of all, it is beyond doubt that a barley-and-date-diet alone was inadequate for human sustenance as it could not provide all the necessary nutrients, most importantly vitamins A and C. While it covered a large portion of the caloric intake (ca. 65% 49), other foodstuffs had to be sup-plemented, which are usually invisible in our documentation 50. There must have been a way for the Babylonian temple dependants to acquire these additional commodities (including textiles for clothing), by using parts of the barley and date rations as a means of exchange. The question of the adequacy of the ancient Mesopotamian diet has been treated by Ellison (1981 and 1983) and van der Spek (1998 : 246-253). As for the dietary needs, van der Spek has shown in his study on the standard of living in Parthian Babylon based on the evidence from the Ra⁄imesu archive a whole spectrum of diffi culties inherent in the calculations for determining the adequacy of the rations. Establishing the caloric needs of a human is not a straightforward business to begin with, as these depend on several factors, such as age, sex, body weight, type and duration of physical activity, etc. Various estimates for adult males range from 2,400 to 3,822 calories per day 51. The caloric value of barley depends on the stage of processing of the grain : clean, pearled barley has a higher caloric value than the barley which is still hulled, which can include 35-40% of indigestible material 52. Since we are usually not informed about the quality of barley in our texts this is yet another variable which adds to the list of uncertainties. Additionally, there is no uniformity in the conversion of ancient measures into modern equivalents. For volume to weight conversions van der Spek (1998 : 249-250) quotes different rates ranging from 587 to 788 g as the weight of a litre of barley, but settles for 620 g, which is the rate used also by Powell (1984 : 54). Ellison, on the other hand, uses the weight of 765 g as the equivalent of one litre of barley (1981 : 38). Nevertheless, they both arrive at comparable results. According to Ellison a daily consumption of 1 to 1.33 litres of barley for males and

48 BM 113264 : 813 kor of barley for 180 workers and eight months could effectively supply 203 people

with 90.1 litres of barley per month ; BM 114558 : 405 kor of barley for 180 workers and four

months provided monthly allotments of 90.2 litres for 202 people.

49 Van der Spek 1998 : 24764, 248. Note that some estimates go up to 75%.

50 This is particularly true for the regular rations, which according to the temple documentation

consisted only of barley and dates. The same problem of an unbalanced composition of rations

can be observed in the earlier periods of Mesopotamian history as well (cf. Ellison 1981). The

travel ration texts and those which concern issues of supplies for work gangs or military troops

give evidence for more diverse provisioning, including commodities such as cress, salt and oil

and sometimes also processed foods such as fl our and beer.

51 Van der Spek 1998 : 247-248 ; note that other estimates averaged over the entire population, includ-

ing men, women and children, come up with a much lower range of 1,625 to 2,011 calories per

day (Van der Spek 1998 : 248).

52 Van der Spek 1998 : 24873.


0.83 to 1 litre for females would provide a suffi cient energy intake (1981 : 38-39 ; 1983 : 148-149). Van der Spek’s calculations indicate that slightly more than 1 litre of barley per day had to be consumed to satisfy the caloric requirements. This fi gure applies, however, for a hypothetical 100% barley diet, as was apparently also posited by Ellison. In reality only about 0.7 litres of barley had to be consumed by an average adult daily but other foodstuffs had to be supplemented for a healthy diet (van der Spek 1998 : 250). Keeping in mind that these rates are inevitably approximations, due to a number of uncertainties, it is nevertheless beyond any doubt that they were more than covered by the travel provi-sions provided by the temples. Even one of the smallest attested travel rations, 60 litres per person per month (YOS 3 69), provides for two litres of barley per day which was more than was necessary in terms of the caloric value of the food. Clearly, a part of the travel provisions was not meant for direct consumption by the recipient.

The same trend of ‘over-provisioning’ can be observed in the regular ration systems employed by the Neo-Babylonian temples. As Jursa notes in his contribution in this volume, ‘rations’ should not be evaluated exclusively with regard to the dietary needs of the recipients, but rather the cost of living in general. For this reason he suggests under-standing these ‘rations’ as “salary paid in kind”. In this context one should consider the concept of grain equivalent (kg/grain equivalent/person/year) which can be applied to various peasant societies and according to which other necessary (agricultural) products (food and textiles for clothing) are converted into grain equivalents rather than money in order to calculate the actual costs of living. This device was in fact used by van der Spek in his study 53. He arrives at 571 to 608 litres of barley equivalent per person per year. This translates into ca. 50 litres per month or 1.6 to 1.7 litres per day (1998 : 252). Again, the smallest attested travel ration (60 litres/month) would have been slightly more than was necessary to cover the costs of living for a single person. The larger rations provide a considerable surplus. The Sippar monthly standard of 180 litres, i.e. 6 litres per day, for instance, was probably enough to support a family consisting of two adults and two children. Women are in fact extremely rarely attested as recipients of rations in the Neo-Babylonian period 54. It seems probable that in most of the cases women depended on their husbands’/fathers’ rations for sustenance 55. The existence of a family which had to be supported and its size could be the explanation for the seeming over-provisioning and the variations in the rates of the issued rations.

Coming back to the question of the adequacy of the rations provided, in terms of quantity and quality, no straightforward answer is possible. As for the quality, obviously

53 Van der Spek 1998 : 250.

54 Women employed in the temple’s poultry industry (Jankovic 2004 : 106, 141) and female millers,

who were, however, probably not temple dependants but belonged to some royal institution

(Jankovic 2007 : 230-231, 237-239), appear as recipients of rations in the Neo-Babylonian temple

archives. For further references to women in ration lists see Jursa’s contribution to this volume,

note 16.

55 Note that a wife of a carpenter appeared as the recipient of rations once (Camb. 359). He was prob-

ably away in Lebanon cutting cedars, while she remained at home in Sippar and received rations

from the temple on his behalf. This could possibly support the assumption that the rations the

temple dependants received were meant to sustain their family members as well.


a diet based solely on the issued commodities, namely barley and/or dates, would have resulted in serious malnutrition. It was left to the recipient to secure a diverse diet for him-self (and his family) 56. How and to which extent this was specifi cally done evades us, due to the lack of pertinent documentation. In terms of quantity, most of the attested rations would have been enough to cover the needs of a single person, leaving a large enough margin to use a part of the issued commodities as a means of exchange in order to obtain other foodstuffs and items necessary in everyday life. Furthermore, most of the attested rations were large enough to support at least one more person and some could even sup-port four people. So the question of quantitative adequacy of the rations hinges on the familial situation of the recipient, which is, as a rule, not revealed to us and which was, perhaps, at least occasionally taken into consideration by the ration issuing authorities.

5.2 FlourBarley fl our (q™mu) was put to several uses in the Babylonian temples. Besides being part of the food rations and travel provisions disbursed to the temple dependants and hirelings, it was also used for cultic purposes 57. It was considered to be the standard commodity sup-plied to the travellers even in antiquity and the term q™m ⁄arråni (“fl our of the journey”) appears as a synonym for Ωidºtu (see note 2). The advantage of fl our over barley grain lies in the fact that it was already ground, i.e. the recipient was spared one extra step of process-ing and could immediately proceed with the food preparation. Apart from the time-sav-ing effect it also meant that the traveller would not have the additional load of a stone hand-mill to carry. For this reason fl our was frequently issued to travellers and messengers in antiquity 58. As observed by Bongenaar, fl our, often along with beer and sometimes bread, was also supplied to workers engaged in urgent work such as canal digging and to specialised craftsmen, stemming perhaps from Babylon, who were employed for work on the temple, as these people would not have had the time or the facilities to grind their own fl our (1997 : 123) 59. It is remarkable, then, that a relatively small number of issues

56 Even though the travel provisions are more diverse than the regular rations, as they frequently

included also cress, salt and oil, other types of food, such as vegetables, pulses, dairy products

and to a lesser extent meat and fi sh, which most certainly belonged to the daily menu of an

ancient Babylonian, are conspicuously missing from our documentation.

57 Notably the “greeting of the temple” ceremony (šalåm bºti) (Bongenaar 1997 : 120-122). For other

cultic uses of fl our see Bongenaar 1997 : 122. The situation in Uruk is similar (Kleber 2005 : 308).

For the use of fl our for offerings to the Urukean deities see the pertinent chapters in Beaulieu

2003. As for the non-cultic uses, beside human consumption one can also note the issue of fl our

for glue to be used in the manufacture/repair of doors in GC 1 300.

58 See Milano 1993-97 : 31 for attestations of this practice in Mesopotamia. Cf. also Hallock’s category

Q (1969 : 42) in which fl our is the most common commodity given out to travellers.

59 Again, the situation in Uruk concerning the recipients of fl our, beer and, infrequently, bread, i.e.

processed foods, is very similar to that in Sippar (cf. Kleber 2005 : 297-300).


of fl our to travellers appear in our sample of texts 60. It seems that fl our was not always readily available for this purpose, and the temple was frequently forced to make alternative deliveries in the form of silver or barley 61. It is conceivable that larger amounts of fl our were not kept in stock since it had a shorter storage life than barley. It was probably pro-duced and handed out on demand 62. The temple’s requirements for fl our could in many cases be anticipated 63. However, the journeys undertaken by temple personnel were not always the product of careful planning and the travellers had to make do with substitutes if no fl our was in stock. It was up to them to procure the fl our needed for their journey, either by purchasing it 64 or by grinding the barley themselves (or having someone do it for them). During the grinding process some of the barley would be lost and this fact was taken into account by the temple, which is refl ected by the issues of correspondingly larger amounts of unprocessed barley. In CT 56 125, for instance, 36 litres of barley are

60 CT 55 421, CT 56 653, PTS 2370 (the two letters YOS 3 189 and BIN 1 6 (q™m ⁄arråni) stem prob-

ably from a private context.) However, one should probably add to these attestations the texts

in which Ωidºtu is not explicitly mentioned, but which record fl our issues to people sent away

on various errands : BM 49824 (MG), GC 1 72, 110, 151, 401, GC 2 140, 149, 298, NCBT 254,

811.

61 Barley instead of fl our : CT 56 125 ; silver instead of fl our : CT 56 429, and texts in which Ωidºtu is

not explicitly mentioned, but which probably record issues of travel rations : GC 1 72, GC 1 208,

GC 1 294 and Nbn. 249 ; dates instead of fl our : GC 1 111 (Ωidºtu not explicitly mentioned).

62 Flour production in the temples was traditionally the domain of the prison (bºt kºli ; or bºt asºrº in

Old Babylonian times (for references see Bongenaar 1997 : 113116)) and its chief (rab bºt kºli).

Many issues of barley to the chief of the prison for grinding, and his subsequent deliveries of

fl our to the temple testify to this. The actual work was done by the prisoners (Bongenaar 1997 :

113-123 ; Kleber 2005 : 293-294). The production of the prison was not enough to meet the needs

of the temple (the chief of the prison even had to buy fl our on the market on one occasion (see

note 64)) and this was certainly not the only place where fl our was ground. The “fl our house”

(bºt q™m™ti/q™mi), attested several times in Uruk, was one such place (for references see Jankovic

2007 : 2239). A bºt q™mi appears also in Sippar in Cyr. 61 and perhaps in CT 22 72. The “house

of the millers” (é lú⁄ar-⁄a[rmeš]) is attested in CT 55 419. Not infrequently was barley issued

to various temple employees for grinding, e.g., to carpenters, doorkeepers, weavers, workers of

the sheep and cow stalls, etc. (Bongenaar 1997 : 119f+127). In Uruk there is one instance of a

special arrangement for grinding fl our made between the temple administration and the rural

population from a village in the Uruk hinterland (YOS 7 186). For further details and earlier

literature on the text cf. Jankovic 2007 : 231.

63 E.g., the fl our needed for cultic purposes and ceremonies, which strictly followed the cultic calen-

dar, or for the rations of workers employed on construction projects which had been planned

in advance.

64 Flour could be purchased on the market (sªqu ; for a preliminary discussion of this term see Jursa

2005b : 179-180). This is evident from GC 1 120, in which the chief of prison delivered fl our

to the temple, of which a certain amount was obtained on the market. Flour from the market

appears also in GC 2 140 and 168. From GC 1 72 we know that one shekel of silver could buy

48 litres of fl our.


issued for 30 litres of fl our, meaning that a loss of six litres, i.e. 1/6 of the volume of barley provided, was expected 65.

Only three Ωidºtu texts from Sippar offer the data necessary for calculating the monthly rates for fl our provided to the travellers (CT 56 429, 653, BM 49824 (MG)). In two cases (CT 56 653 and BM 49824) this amount is six litres, which is too little effectively to sustain an adult. A slightly bigger ration can be found in CT 56 429 where silver for 120 litres for two men and a journey lasting six months was provided. This adds up to ten litres per month per person. It appears, however, that a ration of three or more litres per day was the norm 66. The rations attested in our texts were probably not intended to cover the entire duration of the journey. The missing part could be compensated by some of the other commodities or the silver issued to the travellers.

5.3 BeerAlthough beer appears as an essential constituent of the travel rations in the documenta-tion from Persepolis and Ur III Umma and Girsu 67, it does not fi gure prominently in our sample of texts. It is not attested in a single document explicitly recording Ωidºtu. Its absence from these texts is probably connected to the practicability of transporting it on longer journeys. When travelling along a network of way-stations it did not pose much of a problem to carry a day’s beer ration with oneself, or even less if part of it had been consumed at the station already. However, the Ωidºtu texts we are dealing with are not a refl ection of such a way-station system, as had already been stressed. In keeping with the actual underlying ration system, the temple dependants would have had to carry beer supplies for the entire duration of their journey, which could take anything from several days to months to years even. This was clearly not practical because the required beer (presumably a litre per day) would have represented a heavy and bulky load. Besides, a processed product such as beer could not be kept for very long and was better consumed fresh. The travellers must have therefore had the opportunity to obtain the beverage along the way. Whether they could for this purpose benefi t from a network of roadside inns, state or privately run, remains a matter for speculation.

In the context of construction works away from the temple, however, beer does occasionally appear as a commodity issued to work gangs 68. These more or less stationary troops needed to be supplied with beer by the temple for the duration of the project, in case they could not obtain it themselves, for instance, due to the lack of local suppliers.

65 The loss rates range from 1/6 to 1/3 of the original volume of the cereal. For the attestations see

Bongenaar 1997 : 115120. Once 15 litres of dates are given as a substitute for 12 litres of fl our

(GC 1 111). If the exchange rate of barley and dates is taken to be 1:1, then the loss rate in this

case amounts to 1/5.

66 Note that one carpenter received three litres of fl our as his daily ration for a period of eight days

(NCBT 81). The daily ration of three litres is also attested in a text from Babylon (TÉBR 90,

Joannès 1982a : 328). A daily ration of four litres can be found in CT 56 757.

67 Note, however, that in the messenger texts beer extract (dida), a dry matter better suited for trans-

port, was, rather than beer, issued to people actually on the move (Sallaberger 1999 : 297-298).

68 E.g., for workers from Eanna stationed in Raqqat-Šamaš, a locality either in the vicinity of Larsa

or Sippar (VS 20 42, GC 1 103).


There is also some indication that the workers could be accompanied by a brewer who could make beer on the spot (CT 56 159) 69.

5.4 CressCress (sa⁄lû) 70 was an important supplement to the cereal-and-date diet, being rich in iron, calcium, folic acid, as well as vitamins A and C. Harvested cress leaves are not suit-able for transport and can be stored for a short period of time only 71. Therefore it seems most likely that cress seed was supplied to the travellers (and generally for rations). The seed itself could be consumed and it would have been fairly easy to produce fresh shoots along the way. Cress is a rather uncomplicated plant which will germinate almost anywhere within two days given the right conditions — a garden is not necessary 72. A couple of days after germination the shoots could be harvested and consumed. Sprouting cress seeds along the way, or in places away from one’s home and garden, was a very effi cient way of using a minimum amount of space and effort to produce a maximum of nutrients all year round. It is therefore not surprising that this plant was one of the staples supplied to the travellers or given as ration to people stationed away from their home.

Cress was not always available in the temple and these rations were sometimes sub-stituted by silver. The silver equivalents attested in our texts vary greatly. They range from 0.02 to 0.06 shekels per litre of cress (again, most probably seed) 73.

The rates at which cress was issued range from 0.4 to two litres per month. In Uruk they are more uniform — a rate of one litre is attested at least four times and once two litres 74 were issued (see Table 1a in the Appendix). In Sippar the monthly rations tend to be smaller and more varied in size : 0.4 litres (attested twice), 0.5 litres (attested four times) and 0.75 litres (attested once ; see Table 1b).

69 Exceptionally, beer appears in a small number of texts which deal with issues of this beverage to

people sent on different errands. Workers sent to the quay to weigh barley (GC 1 297) or those

sent to collect dates (CD 111) received it, as well as a carpenter who was sent to the steppe for

wood (YOS 19 173). These trips probably did not take a long time and did not involve great

distances and the beer issued in these cases can perhaps be seen as remuneration rather than as

sustenance for a journey.

70 Pink mustard (Erucaria aleppica), garden cress (Lepidium sativum) or water cress (Nasturtium offi ci-

nale) ? See Stol 1983-84 : 28.

71 Nowadays cress leaves stay fresh for only about two days in a refrigerated environment.

72 By way of example, the seeds will even start germinating if they are kept in damp kitchen paper.

The requirements for sprouting — moisture, warmth and some indirect sunlight — could have

easily been met by the ancient travellers. They could have used terracotta containers as sprouting

vessels. These would have been suitable for this purpose due to the high porosity and hydraulic

conductivity of the material. Baked clay could therefore act as a water reservoir for the shoots

and at the same time keep them from becoming waterlogged, a state that should be avoided.

73 See Table 2 in the Appendix.

74 In this text (AUWE 5 110) only cress and salt were issued, both at two litres per month which was

double the normal ration in Uruk. These high amounts may have served to compensate for the

absence of oil and other commodities in this ration.


5.5 SaltSalt, an important part of the human diet, particularly in an arid climate where salt loss through perspiration is not negligible and can result in death, also appears in the rations of travellers and work gangs employed at various projects. In most cases people were supplied with the same amount of cress and salt, while the oil ration, which as a rule complemented them, was frequently approximately a half or a third of that amount. In Uruk rations of one litre of salt per month are attested at least fi ve times, and there is even one attestation of two litres (see note 74). In Sippar the rates are more varied and are on average half as big as in Uruk. The two extreme values are 0.4 (attested once) and 0.75 litres (attested twice) per month per person. In between there are at least four attestations of 0.5 litres. Potts (1997 : 103) notes that experts disagree on the daily salt requirements of humans whose subsistence is based on agriculture. These fi gures vary between two and 15 g of salt per day 75. Modern recommendations for adults are between 12 and 15 g per day (Potts 1997 : 106). The Neo-Babylonian travellers from Uruk received daily 41.67 g of salt (and once even double that amount : 83.34 g) and those from Sippar 16.67, 20.84 or 31.25 g 76. All these rations clearly exceed the recommended daily intake 77. Potts suggested that these rations could have been intended for the entire family of the recipient (1997 : 106). The salt rations from Uruk could possibly only just cover the needs of a family, but other explana-tions could be sought for these apparently excessive issues of salt. As is known, salt could be used for the preservation of fi sh and meat. Although fi sh and meat were generally not issued to travellers from Eanna and Ebabbar, it is conceivable that it was left up to them to procure meat if they wished to. For its preservation salt would have been necessary. But, perhaps, salt could have been put to other, less practically oriented, uses. It could have been used as a means of exchange, as was the case with some of the other commodities issued as rations by the temple. However, one should note that the purchasing power of salt was relatively limited — according to GC 1 244 two talents (= ca. 60 kg) of salt were worth one quarter (of a shekel 78).

5.6 OilOil (šamnu, ì-giš) given for travel rations was made from sesame (šamaššammu, še-giš-ì 79) and could be used not only in food preparation but for hair and skin care as well. The uses to which it was actually put by the travellers are not revealed by the texts. They cannot

75 Hunters and gatherers apparently do not need an extra intake of salt (Potts 1997 : 103).

76 The conversion from litres to grams follows the observation of Potts (1997 : 106) that 1 kg of salt

has a volume of 0.8 litres.

77 Potts made a similar observation for the salt rations of the workers employed at the reconstruction

of the Ekur temple in Nippur in the Old Akkadian period. A standard ration for a workman

was 0.5 litres and for a foreman one litre per month (1997 : 105-106).

78 Or was a quarter of one mina intended ? The text only gives the fraction without the weight unit.

One shekel seems more likely since the other silver amounts given in the text were in this unit.

Besides, fractions of a mina are usually followed by a weight unit (either mina or shekel). For

prices of other commodities issued see Table 2 in the Appendix.

79 For the identifi cation of še-giš-ì as sesame rather than linseed see Powell 1991 and Jursa 1995 : 176.

Particularly in the context of travels, which could extend over considerable periods of time,


have had much leeway in this respect, as the oil rations tended to be rather small (e.g., in Uruk ten millilitres per day, see below). As was noted earlier, while the amount of cress and salt, which usually accompanied the issues of oil, was normally the same, the oil ration was rarely of the same size and frequently only a fraction of this amount. It was the most expensive edible item among the travel provisions, after all.

The following salt-cress-oil ratios are attested in Uruk : 1:1:0.3 (three times) ; in Sippar : 1:1:1 (twice ?), 1:1:0.83 (once), 1:1:0.53 (once) and 1:1:0.5 (three ? times). A typical oil ration in Uruk was 0.3 litres per month. In Sippar a greater variety is attested : 0.2, 0.25, 0.33, 0.4, 0.5 and 0.75 litres of oil per month 80.

Sometimes sesame was issued instead of oil. The amount of seed provided was fi ve to six times greater than the amount of oil to be obtained from it (Bongenaar 1997 : 266+241). In NCBT 561, for instance, 4 sªtu 3 qû (27 litres) of sesame were issued for 4.5 qû (4.5 litres) of oil, i.e. at a ratio of 6:1. This is somewhat surprising considering that the oil obtained from sesame seed amounts to 50-60% of the seed volume (Bedigian 1985 : 160). However, these fi gures are based on modern processing methods and the Neo-Babylonian documents, with a signifi cantly lower oil output of ca. 17-20%, demonstrate the limita-tions of the ancient oil pressing technology.

Calculating the rates of oil rations and oil prices can be complicated by the fact that it was sometimes given out in a type of vessel, n™sepu, mentioning only the number of vessels, but not their capacity. The prices for a litre of oil fall into the range from 0.27 to 0.34 shekels (see Table 2 in the Appendix). The price of one n™sepu of oil was 1.33 shekels according to GC 1 349 and 1.5 shekels according to YOS 19 220. However, the size of a n™sepu is not certain. It may have had a capacity of six litres, as is possibly indicated by GC 1 186 and NCBT 86. These are issues of sesame for oil, both of which postulate a ratio of 36 litres of sesame per one n™sepu of oil. Using the standard seed to oil ratio of 6:1 one would get a capacity of six litres for this vessel 81.

5.7 MeatAs a rule, meat or fi sh were not issued to the Neo-Babylonian travellers 82. Likewise these foodstuffs are not represented among the regular rations of the period. The absence of this type of food from the travel provisions was probably owed to its limited storability and transportability, apart from being a prestige item in essence 83. Despite a well devel-

the use of sesame oil makes better sense as it is more stable than linseed oil, which turns rancid

easily and has a more limited storage life.

80 The ration of 0.25 litres was attested twice. All the others were attested once each.

81 A n™sepu of two litres was perhaps attested in UCP 9/2 24 : 3 né-sep 2 sìla a-na […] (l. 29). But

this could also be interpreted as three n™sepu-vessels (plus) two litres. Stol (1994 : 169) tried to

calculate the capacity of the n™sepu used for storing beer in the Neo-Babylonian period and

came up with a value of seven to eight litres. This represents yet another size attested thus far

for this vessel.

82 Note, however, that the Ur III travellers occasionally received fi sh (cf. note 12). For the exceptional

issues of meat in the Persepolis Fortifi cation texts see Henkelman 2006 : 351+813, 815.

83 “Prestige food” is the classifi cation given to meat in classical antiquity by Garnsey (1999 : 16-17,

122-127).


oped sheep, goat and cattle breeding industry, to which poultry 84 and perhaps also pig 85 breeding can be added, meat did not play a signifi cant role in the ancient Mesopotamian diet. The animals’ secondary products (wool, goat hair, to a lesser extent hides and dairy products) and labour (cattle were used for drawing ploughs) were “much too valuable for the animal itself to be slaughtered 86” and their meat used for mass human consumption. Conversely, meat was the food of the gods par excellence and the sacrifi cial remains were reserved for consumption by the king and the elite cultic personnel 87. Nevertheless, meat must have occasionally been available to the sub-elite portions of the society as well 88. Examples from the Eanna archive are found in UCP 9/2 24, BM 114558 and BM 113264, which record, among other things, issues of goats for work gangs. However, these were not Ωidºtu texts in a strict sense, but rather records of the provisioning of large groups of workers employed at public projects. The people involved here were therefore not on the go most of the time ; rather, they were stationed away from home for extended periods. Under such circumstances supplying animals on the hoof which could be slaughtered on the spot was practicable. According to BM 113264 eight billy-goats were supplied for 180 men for a period of eight months, i.e. one goat per month per 180 people. Even if there was just one big feast per month when workers got to eat meat, the meat portions could not have been very substantial 89. Perhaps the feasting on meat was reserved for the

84 Jankovic 2004.

85 Potts 1997 : 86. The evidence for pig breeding comes from earlier periods.

86 Potts 1997 : 89.

87 See for instance McEwan 1983 and Corò Capitanio 2004. (A similar practice can be observed in

the Graeco-Roman world, Garnsey 1999 : 123-124). From the Assyrian sources it is evident that

the sacrifi cial leftovers reserved for the king contained substantial quantities of meat (enough

to feed 700 people, Parpola 2004 : 291) which the king distributed among the courtiers and

other notables he wished to honour or at public banquets.

88 For the meat consumption of the pastoral nomads, which will have been higher on average, there

is no pertinent documentation. As for the urban population, one could refer to the banquets

organised by the Assyrian kings at which large quantities of meat were served. The guests were

not only the Assyrian and foreign nobility but also on one occasion 15,000 citizens of Kal⁄u

(Parpola 2004 : 29122). Note similar and other occurrences recorded by Garnsey for the classical

antiquity (1999 : 124-126).

89 Despite my initial scepticism about the possibility of feeding 180 people with just one goat and

thanks to a remark W. Henkelman made during our round table discussion concerning mut-

ton allotments to workers found in the material he was working on, I decided to look into this

matter in more detail. In order to calculate the meat portions one needs to know the weight of

the animal and the rate of the meat yield. The latter parameter ranges from 50 to 55% of the

live weight in four to twelve month old kids, but it sinks below 50% in older animals (Brückner

1990 : 425 ; according to Maurer 2001 : 126 it can sink down to 40%). The main diffi culty for

us is determining the weight of the billy-goats in question. This variable depends on the breed

of goats (smaller breeds can weigh up to 35 kg, whereas larger ones, e.g., a South African vari-

ety (Burenziege) bred nowadays especially for its meat, can weigh from 80 to 125 kg (Brückner

1990 : 411)), its age, sex and stage of fattening. As we are never given the weight of the animals,

nor do we know which breeds were kept in antiquity, we can only make rough approximations


foremen only 90. The second text (BM 114558) records a similarly nominal amount of meat. For a troop of 180 workers three billy-goats were provided. The duration of this expedi-tion is not certain as the text is damaged. Three month names are still visible following a break which could contain another month name. Judging by the size of the rations of salt and oil, four months could have been planned for. So, again, one goat (or perhaps three quarters of a goat) per month per 180 people was (were) provided. The text UCP 9/2 24 91 also deals with a troop of 180 men, but additional staff also appear such as the chief of the oblates, guards, smiths, carpenters, stable boys, etc., which adds another element of uncertainty to the calculation 92. Their annual rations included 20 kids, which could have effectively amounted to 75 kg of live weight per month per gang or up to 208-230 g of meat per man per month 93. Be that as it may, these rare occurrences of meat allotments to Babylonian workers conform well to what Garnsey (1999 : 126) notes about the use of meat in the classical world : “The basic ambiguity is that meat was a prestige food but that others besides the elite had access to it in some shape or form.”

5.8 SilverThat a process of monetisation was under way in the Babylonian temples during the Chaldean and Achaemenid periods is evident from a substantial number of documents including those which record the issues of silver as ‘rations’ and travel provisions 94. The

based on several assumptions. Assuming that the goat in question weighed 80 kg (adult males

of the Damascene or shami-goat, which is bred nowadays in the lands of the Near East (mostly

Syria), can weigh from 60 to 80 kg (Brückner 1990 : 411-412)) and that it had a 45% meat yield,

a portion of 200 g per man per month could have been provided. So, indeed, one billy-goat,

given the right size, could be split between 180 men. However, even using this generous model

there was no danger of anyone suffering from overeating. Meat clearly was an exceptional item

on the Babylonian worker’s menu, if it was intended for them at all (see below).

90 Assuming that the goats provided were meant to be consumed by the foremen of the workers at a

monthly feast and that the work gangs were organised in units of ten workers, as was frequently

the case, there would have been 18 decurions (rab ešertis) and each one would have received 1/18

of a goat (or 2 kg of meat according to the model used in the previous note). For comparable

rates note the portion of 1/10 of a sheep per man in the context of the šip feast (Henkelman

[forthc.] : 22). Other meat rations attested in the Persepolis texts include 1/9, 1/15, 1/30 and even

1/100 of a sheep per man (Henkelman [forthc.] : 2246).

91 The text has been edited by Joannès 1982a : 198-201. Parts of it have recently been re-edited by

Beaulieu (2005 : 55-56) after collation.

92 Altogether 213 people are listed. The chief of the oblates (rab širk™) was to receive a double ration

(of barley) so that a total of 214 rations had to be issued.

93 These fi gures are based on the following assumptions : the weight of each animal was 45 kg (a fat-

tened kid could weight up to 45 kg according to Maurer 2001 : 126), the meat yield was 50-55%

and the number of consumers was 180. If the number of consumers is increased to the actually

present 213 persons, the size of the meat portions drops to ca. 176-194 g per man per month.

94 Cf. the remarks on the process of monetisation in general in Jursa 2004 : 120-121 and idem 2005b.

For different aspects of the use of silver by the temple see Joannès 2005b and for the silver pay-

ments for wages and rations of the temple personnel see Bongenaar 1999 : 169. In the sample


initial purpose of these provisions, at least in part, was to provide alimentary sustenance for the temple dependants away from home. However, the temple did not always seem to have the required victuals (or clothing, shoes, etc.) in stock and resorted to giving out their equivalents in silver. The procurement of the necessary food and equipment was left up to the travellers in such instances. The implication is, at any rate, that it was possible for them to make such purchases either in their home city before the start of the journey or perhaps even along the way 95.

A consideration for the travellers which was presumably of great importance was the load which was to be taken on a journey. There must have been attempts at minimising it whenever possible, the most obvious way being the conversion of the commodities carried into silver. As an example, for a journey lasting one month a traveller would have received a Ωidºtu of 180 litres, i.e. 111.6 kg of barley, and perhaps some additional commodities such as cress, salt and oil. Even when these are neglected, as are also the potential additional loads connected to the mission in question (e.g., weapons or tools, raw materials procured for the temple), the monthly barley provision for a single person represented a heavy load indeed. Even if the traveller had a donkey at his disposal it seems inevitable that he had to shoulder a part of this load himself 96. By comparison, a silver equivalent, assuming an exchange rate of one shekel of silver per 180 litres of barley, weighs only about 8.3 g. In terms of weight, clearly silver was by far the more practical commodity to be taken on journeys. However, for a month’s journey it probably was not necessary to take the entire ration. As was shown above, a daily intake of 0.7 litres of barley would have been suffi cient and a part of the ration would have remained at home as sustenance for other family members. Thus, without accounting for any extras, a traveller had to take with him about 21 litres or slightly over 13 kg of barley for one month, which was manageable even without pack animals or boats. The logistics certainly became more complicated when the journeys lasted for longer periods, involved larger travelling parties and additional loads.

of texts from Eanna, for instance, there are sixteen attestations of silver issued for Ωidºtu. By

comparison, there are only ten barley issues for Ωidºtu in this same sample. Silver for Ωidºtu :

GC 1 92, 191, 311, 405, GC 2 40, 383, OIP 122 107, YOS 3 156, YOS 6 133, YOS 19 222, 228,

NCBT 686, 802, 961, YBC 4173, 9526 (Uruk) ; CT 56 384, 706, CT 57 72, Nbn. 824, 1054,

Cyr. 280, Camb. 23, Dar. 183, 516, 566, BM 65095, BM 65802, BM 64043 (MG), BM 74567,

BM 78828 (MG) (Sippar).

95 For the Neo-Babylonian markets in the cities, where among other things bread, barley, dates and

poultry could be bought see Jursa 2005b : 179-180. The far reaching implications of the provi-

sioning/remuneration in silver which stand in opposition to the traditional oikos model for the

Neo-Babylonian temples have been propounded by Jursa 2005b.

96 According to Altmann different types of donkeys are attested as being able to carry a load ranging

from 50 kg (Bedouin donkey common nowadays in Egypt) to 80 kg (Chinese donkey) on a

daily stretch of 35 to 55 km (1993 : 56-58). The weight fi gures can be raised signifi cantly if the

load is drawn rather than carried directly by the animal ; we are not, however, informed about

the use of carts in our texts (note that cart transports were fairly common and well documented

in earlier periods, Weszeli 2002 : 119-120). Mules, which are generally stronger and more robust

than donkeys, are recorded to carry from ca. 90 to 180 kg (von Gugelberg - Bähler 1994 : 32).

However, these animals appear exceptionally rarely in the Neo-Babylonian sources.


But contrary to what one might expect, especially larger missions were frequently supplied in natura 97. Other aspects, such as availability of food to be bought for money along the way or at the destination (agriculturally underdeveloped rural areas or general shortages of agricultural commodities 98, for example), must have played a role in such instances.

Silver was not only issued as a substitute for the edible commodities and clothing, it was also an additional component of the travel rations in several cases. According to the letter TCL 9 85, for instance, workers sent to ·umad™šu in Iran were to receive 90 litres of barley and dates each, unspecifi ed amounts of cress, salt and oil, clothing items and one shekel of silver monthly. In other words, they were provided with a full Ωidºtu and an additional silver salary. The size of this silver ‘ration’ was far more standardised than the edible items issued, the most frequent amount being one shekel of silver per person per month, both in Sippar and in Uruk 99. All in all, our data correlate well with the salaries

97 For instance, in UCP 9/2 24, BM 113264, 114558. However, it appears that, at least occasionally,

some of the larger quantities of agricultural staples were issued in separate installments (e.g.,

barley and dates in BM 113264 ; furthermore, some of the commodities in this text (cress and

oil) were substituted by silver issues).

98 One such problem is exemplifi ed by the letter YOS 3 81 (edited by Stolper 2003 : 283-284), written

by the rab širk™ Innin-a⁄⁄™-iddin to the temple administration. While engaged in a project,

possibly in the vicinity of Babylon, he asked that silver for work (dullu) and rations be sent to

him, because the barley at his disposal was being expended and becoming scarce. However, he

pointed out that barley was more expensive than dates there where he was stationed (perhaps

this episode should be set in the period after the date and before the barley harvest). As a conse-

quence he suggested that two men (mår bånê) should exchange dates for barley in Sippar, where

the exchange rate was presumably more favourable. Alternatively, they would have to buy the

barley on location : “The barley here is more (expensive) than dates : 240 litres of dates (can be

exchanged) for 180 litres of barley (and) 7,200 litres of barley (can be bought) for one mina of

white silver. Two mår bånê should bring dates up here and exchange them for barley in Sippar.

If not, they should take ten minas of white silver and expend them here for barley, before barley

becomes scarce” (l. 16-26 ; this passage is also quoted by Joannès 2005b : 41).

99 A divergent rate is attested, for instance, in Nbn. 824 according to which the amount issued was

[1].67 shekels of silver per person per month. An exceptionally small silver allotment is attested

in BM 113264, a text listing provisions of food for a troop of 180 men for a period of eight

months. Three minas of silver are designated as “their harvest/yield” (ebªrušunu). Divided by

eight months and 180 people these three minas provide one eighth of a shekel per person per

month. This money must have in a sense been different from the silver payments otherwise

attested in the travel provision texts, but the exact purpose to which it was to be put remains

unknown to us. The same expression (ebªru) appears in BM 114558 and OIP 122 81. In the

former text the amount of silver is lost owing to a break and in the latter the amount of 1.83

minas is provided for a period of two years, but the number of workers is not given. Three more

references (BIN 1 143, CT 22 36, Nbn. 955) are recorded by the CAD E : 16 s.v. ebªrånu, which

“refers in all three instances to sums of money and was probably part of the temple income”.

The second part of this statement is not convincing, despite the non- committal formulation,

since expenditures by the temple are designated by the term.


of 1 to 1.5 shekels of silver attested for the workers of Eanna (Bongenaar 1999 : 169+28) 100. These additional payments were provided on top of the alimentary rations, which, con-sidering their size, could themselves be regarded as a salary, as was noted above. Most of the cases for which these additional payments are attested involved corvée work in Elam or campaigns of a military nature and were to all probability taxation related. An explana-tion could be that the troops deployed by the temples consisted of hired labour, which had to be paid on a monthly basis. If this were so, it is interesting to note that they would have been entitled to travel rations as well, despite not belonging to the temple house-hold. However, not much can be said about the actual composition of these troops with certainty. We know from other sources that the temple also deployed its own dependants for corvée work and mixed troops consisting of both temple dependants and hired labour are also attested. These workers were perhaps entitled to an extra compensation for the arduous/extended missions they were sent on. It remains unclear whether these military and corvée work operations always entailed a combination of travel provisions and silver remuneration irrespective of the institutional affi liation of the participants. Furthermore, it should be noted that also some other travellers, on missions not related to the corvée work, notably the people bringing the sacrifi cial leftovers to the king or the crown-prince 101, benefi ted from these additional silver payments. They were probably entitled to these extra payments as a compensation for the extended periods 102 they had to spend away from their homes (and fi elds ?).

5.9 Clothing, shoes and other equipment 103

Several items of clothing were typically provided for people going on journeys away from the temple. Among these one fi nds túgkur-ra (Akkadian reading unknown), a woollen gar-ment or piece of cloth, translated sometimes as “blanket” 104. Bongenaar (1997 : 39) sug-gested that it was a kind of poncho which could be worn or used as a blanket at the same time. Travellers, as well as work gangs and archers sent on various missions, received one túgkur-ra annually. Instead of the fi nished product occasionally wool was issued, and the recipients had to take care of its processing 105. Silver issues for blankets for the travellers are also recorded. Prices ranging between 4.67 shekels (NBC 4787) and 2.25 shekels (Nbn.

100 According to Jursa, who based his research on a larger data set, the range of salaries is even wider

(cf. his contribution to this volume).

101 E.g., GC 1 22, 72, 405, YOS 19 228, CT 56 26, 429, 650, 653, CT 57 103, Nbn. 824.

102 These journeys could last for up to several months (e.g., four in CT 56 650, seven in Nbn. 824

and probably eight in GC 1 405).

103 For surveys of weapons and equipment of soldiers see the references in notes 25 and 40.

104 See Oppenheim 1950 : 188-189 for a discussion of this term.

105 E.g., in BM 114558, UCP 9/2 24, OIP 122 81. In GC 1 38 dates and wool were given as Ωidºtu to a

chief of the temple oblates. The resident of Eanna made a request to the administrator in the

letter YOS 3 31 to send wool in addition to provisions of salt, cress and oil for the workers. Five

minas of wool per person per year, i.e. 25 shekels per month, was a standard wool ration in Uruk

according to UCP 9/2 24. In Sippar the same ration (fi ve minas/year) is attested in the following

non-travel related texts : CT 56 778, 780, 781 (but note that in CT 56 777 six minas of wool were

issued). However, double this amount, ten minas of wool, is attested in BM 61409 (MG), which


824) for one túgkur-ra are attested in Ωidºtu texts 106. It was clearly a valuable item which occasionally was stolen in the course of journeys, as was reported in the letters TCL 9 83 and YOS 3 73.

Another piece of clothing provided for the travellers and workers in fi eld service, but also soldiers, was the šir¥am, a kind of tunic, which could be made of wool or linen. While in earlier periods this could have been something like a cuirass, reinforced with metal pieces, there is no evidence from the temple archives that this garment was armoured in the Neo-Babylonian period 107. Attestations of issues of šir¥am to temple oblates (širkus) employed on construction projects (dullu) or to (privately owned) slaves and slave women 108 indicate that despite the attestations from the earlier periods this piece of clothing did not necessarily have a protective purpose in the sense of an armour and was not used exclusively in a military context. One šir¥am was issued per person per year. No prices of tunics are attested in the Ωidºtu texts. However, from other documents we know that they could cost between one and ten shekels of silver 109.

One karballatu, a kind of headgear made out of wool or linen, was also issued to travellers annually 110. The price of this item was 0.125 (=1/8) shekels of silver according to Nbn. 824.

Leather shoes or sandals, (me)š™nu (kuše-sír), were also an important part of the trav-ellers’ outfi t. In Uruk they usually received two pairs of shoes per year. In Sippar an allot-ment of one pair per year is more common, although two pairs per year are also attested (see Tables 1a and 1b in the Appendix). It is not clear whether a distinction was made between winter and summer shoes. This could possibly be the explanation for the two pairs per year. At any rate, shoes which are explicitly designated as “open”, meš™nu petûtu, i.e. sandals, are also attested (GC 1 405, CT 55 785 and probably BM 61206, 1 : 2 me-še-nu

led Jursa (see his contribution in this volume) to the assumption that the Sipparean rations of

fi ve minas were meant to cover a period of half a year.

106 See Table 2 in the Appendix. Attestations of prices of blankets from other texts range from

0.375 shekels (GC 1 114) to 7.25 shekels (Camb. 340). Intermediate are : 1.75 shekels (PTS 2635),

2 (YOS 19 224, and perhaps also in GC 1 290 and AUWE 5 155), 2.5 (BM 74332, quoted by

MacGinnis [forthc.]), 2.8 (CT 57 125), 3 (CT 55 790, YOS 19 232), 3.5 (CT 57 92), 3.75 (CT 55

788), 5 shekels (NBC 4827), 5.125 shekels (YOS 19 242).

107 Oppenheim 1950 : 191-195, esp. 191-192. Most of the attestations of this garment are preceded by

the determinative túg (once also by the determinative gada, used for textiles made of linen in

GC 1 412) and occasionally it is explicitly remarked that it was made of wool (e.g., Nbn. 661,

GC 1 299, GC 2 361, NCBT 998, YOS 7 140) or linen (e.g., Ner. 28, TCL 9 117). Exceptionally,

in one text from the Murašû archive a ši-ir-¥-a-nu parzilli (an-bar), i.e. š. (reinforced with) iron

(plates ?), is mentioned as part of a soldier’s equipment (UCP 9/3 p. 269-277, edited by Ebeling

1952 : 209-211).

108 To širkus and zakºtus in NCBT 4692 ; to a slave in Nbn. 1116 ; to slave women in Nbk. 408,

Ner. 28 and also UET 4 118.

109 1 shekel : GC 1 198 and perhaps CT 55 109 ; 1.25 shekels : GC 1 299 ; 1.5 shekels : NCBT 826 ;

2 shekels : BM 74398 (= Bertin 1508) and perhaps GC 1 290 ; 3¿ shekels : CT 57 23 ; 3.3 shekels :

Camb. 340 ; 10 shekels : YOS 19 242.

110 E.g., in CT 55 785, CT 56 429, 653, Dar. 253, BM 68702 (MG).


pi-tu¡-tu). In GC 1 405 another pair of shoes is designated as ⁄ambanûtu, i.e. made out of ⁄amban-leather 111. The word ⁄ambanûtu appears not only in connection with shoes, but is also attested independently as an article provided to the travellers 112. Bongenaar con-jectured that it might designate a leather bag(?) (1997 : 134). Quite possibly it was another term for shoes. In GC 1 405 both meš™nu ⁄ambanûtu and ⁄ambanûtu appear among the items given out or for which silver was issued. It seems that they both designate the same thing, the latter word being the abbreviated form. The price of ⁄ambanûtu in this text is 0.33 shekels of silver, the same as the price of meš™nu ⁄ambanûtu. This is also in support of the assumption that both words designate the same kind of shoes, perhaps winter shoes, in contrast to meš™nu petûtu. Shoe prices of 0.33 (GC 1 405 and perhaps YOS 19 228) and 0.5 shekels (NBC 4787) are known.

Another item frequently issued together with shoes was nª†u, some sort of leather container. It was produced by the leather-workers who also made shoes (e.g., the aškåpu Lâbåši delivered shoes and a new nª†u for the people who carried the rations of the king in BM 61208 and BM 63917, Bongenaar 1993). The usual allotment was one nª†u per person per year, but sometimes it had to be shared by two (BM 61208) or three (TCL 9 85) persons. YOS 19 228 gives two shekels of silver as the price of four pairs of shoes and two nª†ª. If it is assumed that all the items cost the same, then 0.33 shekels were the equivalent of one nª†u. In GC 1 306 the price recorded for one nª†u was 0.2 shekels, but a much more expensive one, costing 1.38 shekels is attested in CT 56 650.

The term saqqu, a kind of sack, appears in a list of equipment and provisions, rikis qabli, for 50 persons, probably archers, since they were also provided with bows and quivers (BM 68702 (MG)). Ten and eleven sacks per 50 men appear in this text, meaning that about fi ve persons would have had to share one. An issue of silver to two men who brought the rations of the king to the expeditionary camp (madåktu) for cress, salt and oil provisions and various leather utensils, among which are two sacks, indicates that each one would have had his own saqqu (CT 56 650). The silver equivalent of a sack was half a shekel according to this text.

Water skins (nådª) and belts (meserrª) are mentioned only once in our corpus, in YOS 3 127. The author of this letter asks the administrator and another high temple offi cial to send him 60 meserrª, 60 nª†ª and nådª and seven good donkeys for his 60 workers.

5.10 Means of transportIn Babylonia travel could be conducted overland or on the highly developed network of watercourses. Despite the numerous attestations of boats and pack animals in the records from fi rst millennium BC Babylonia 113, they appear only rarely in our sample of texts. They were generally not used for the transport of humans, but rather for that of equipment and food provisions or other goods. While donkeys do not require particularly regulated roads (they can walk on the narrowest paths, which can be of great importance especially in mountainous regions), the advantage of boats was clearly their capacity to carry heavier

111 ·amban or ·abban was a Kassite tribal territory in western Iran according to Zadok 1985 : 145.

112 GC 1 405, CT 56 23, 556, 650 and perhaps in CT 55 785.

113 For boats see Weszeli 2002 and for donkeys and mules Weszeli 1996 and 1997.


loads 114. In particular cases boats would have doubtless been the preferred means of transport. They would have been more practical when large amounts of commodities, e.g., the provisions of big troops for extended periods, had to be transported. GC 1 80, for instance, is a list of twelve boat-towers that were to tow a boat carrying the Ωidºtu of the archers 115. However, as Weszeli noted, it would not be justifi ed to make sweeping remarks to the effect that the use of waterways was more common in Babylonia than overland travel because it was cheaper. The choice of transport depended on a number of factors such as the scale and purpose of the mission (number of people involved, duration of the journey and consequently the amount of necessary provisions), topographical (availability of roads or navigable water courses) or climatic circumstances (low water levels), etc., and not only the cost of the transport 116. In fact, where both possibilities were present, water and overland transport could be conducted alternately (Weszeli 2002 : 121-122). Thus we fi nd donkeys employed for troop transports. Donkeys and saddlebags (ukåpu 117) were provided for 50 archers in a rikis qabli text (BM 68702 (MG)). The number of donkeys is broken off, but since fi ve saddlebags were issued, it is probable that the number of animals was also fi ve. If this were so, there would be one donkey for every ten archers to carry their equipment and provisions 118. Conversely, we also fi nd small travelling parties using boats as their means of transport. In Nbn. 1017, for instance, a boat was issued to three men together with their provisions of cress, salt and oil.

Horses appear in our texts, but in a broken context : in CT 56 23, an issue of cloth-ing and provisions, and in CT 56 556, an issue of silver for the clothing of the archers. It is not clear whether in these instances the horses themselves were issued or only fodder for them.

There is even one mention of a camel in a text recording the issue of silver (50 shekels) for a camel, ibilu (anše a-ab¡-ba), and for fl our to a man who was sent to T™må (GC 1 294).

Fodder for donkeys and mules was occasionally provided to the travellers, as in NCBT 561 (27 litres of barley per month for a mule, kªdanu). A donkey was purchased for 50 shekels of silver and provided as rikis qabli for cavalry (Dar. 253) 119.

114 For the boats in the Neo-Babylonian period carrying capacities between 1.12 and 39.1 tons are

attested (Weszeli 2002 : 61). By comparison a donkey can carry from 50 to 80 kg (see note

96).

115 Also in the letter YOS 3 189 it is reported that the Ωidºtu was sent by boat, but the amounts

involved are not known to us.

116 “Die Wahl des Transportmittels wurde oft auf Grund von Sachzwängen der jeweiligen Situation

angepasst” (Weszeli 2002 : 117). For a detailed enumeration of factors infl uencing the choice of

transport cf. Weszeli 2002 : 122.

117 Saddlebags appear also in CT 56 23, in which horses are mentioned.

118 A similar ratio is attested in YOS 3 127 according to which seven donkeys were to be provided

for 60 workers.

119 For more donkey prices cf. the table of prices collected by Weszeli 1996 : 477.


6 Summary

The Neo-Babylonian travel provision-related texts from the archives of Eanna and Ebabbar have little in common with the documentation from the Persepolis Fortifi cation archive or the Ur III messenger texts, which refl ect the workings of way-stations. Rather, the Ωidºtu texts tie in with temple households’ ration systems. They represent a sub-group of these ration systems, the purpose of which was to supply alimentary sustenance and remunera-tion to the temple dependants. When sent on journeys or (work) expeditions away from the temple and the city, the livelihood of these people still remained the temple’s respon-sibility. Ideally, they were provided with food and in addition to this with clothing and shoes and sometimes silver. The food provisions typically consisted of barley and/or dates, or alternatively fl our, and of cress, salt and oil. Although they were clearly more diverse in their composition than the regular rations which were made up of barley and dates only, nevertheless they could not satisfy the entire dietary needs of their recipients. Issues of meat are negligible in number and size and dairy products, vegetables and pulses were never supplied to the travellers, just as they do not appear in the texts recording the regu-lar rations. Some of the food which these people will have consumed was unsuitable for storing and transporting and had to be obtained by them along the way and eaten imme-diately. Frequently the commodities which should have been issued by the temple were not in stock and had to be substituted by others. The temple reckoned with the exchange-ability of commodities when issuing (travel) rations to its dependants, which is refl ected in their size, too. A part of these was intended for direct consumption by the recipients and sometimes other family members, but a part was to be exchanged for other foodstuffs and commodities necessary for everyday living. This may explain why the rations in Sippar and Uruk were not uniform. If they were meant to be used solely for the alimentary sustenance of a single individual then the variation in rates at which the staples were issued would be inexplicable. The most common barley/date ration in Uruk was 90 litres per month. One litre each of salt and cress and 0.3 litres of oil appear among the typical travel provisions from Eanna. In Sippar, a barley/date ration of 180 litres was the norm, whereas the sizes of the cress-salt-oil provisions are less uniform. The one most frequently attested consisted of 0.5 litres of cress and salt each and of 0.25 litres of oil. Thus we can observe that the barley and date rations in Uruk tend to be on average half the size of those in Sippar. On the other hand, the salt and cress issues in Uruk are frequently double the amount of those in Sippar. This was perhaps dependent on the availability of the staples in the two temples. All the same, it is not possible to decide whether the provisions supplied by the two institutions were more or less equivalent or not, since quantifi cation in this respect would prove to be diffi cult, particularly because one has to take into consideration that the needs of further unspecifi ed family members had to be covered by parts of these provisions as well. In addition to these edible commodities, clothing and shoes were provided for the travellers, as well as silver, which was sometimes given out as a substitute for the edible rations or occasionally as a supplementary payment. These provisions had a standard size both in Uruk and in Sippar : one piece of each clothing item and frequently two pairs of shoes were given out to the travellers per year. The silver allotments usually amounted to


one shekel per month and should be considered as extra wages, though it remains unclear which circumstances gave rise to these additional payments.

In sum, the Neo-Babylonian travel provisions, though not a uniform system per se, can be characterised as an elaborate form of the temple’s regular rations. In a number of cases, especially when additional silver payments were issued, the travellers or members of work/military troops engaged by the temples were provided with ample food provisions and an adequate remuneration enabling them, at least in theory, to secure a diverse diet and make a decent living, not only for themselves but also their families. On the other hand, relatively modest travel provisions, barely enough to cover the most basic needs of a single individual, are also attested. These should certainly be understood as refl ections of status differences within the group of travellers. General inferences on the nutritional status of the people and the standard of living in the Neo-Babylonian period are not pos-sible as only a narrow segment of the adult male population is represented by our texts. The urban elites which usually skew our perspective on the Babylonian society are for once not the focus of the documentation. Nevertheless, even though we are dealing with the lower strata of society — temple dependants and perhaps also hirelings —, it is doubtful that they were representative of the masses. Just as the Roman army, which was, when not on military campaigns, employed on the construction of roads, aqueducts, etc., and which was in many respects, including diet, privileged (Garnsey 1999 : 44), it seems prob-able that the travellers and above all the troops and the work gangs appearing in our texts were similarly a special group. To say the least, they stood out from the ‘stationary’ temple dependants, from whose ranks they were for the most part recruited, in that they received more diverse food provisions and in addition to them clothing and sometimes even silver wages. Comparisons to other parts of the population, rural, urban or nomadic, cannot be made as we are lacking any frame of reference.


Appen

dix

: R

ates

of

trav

el p

rovi

sions

12

0

text

date

barl

eyda

tes

salt

cres

soi

lsi

lver

shoe

snª

†ubl

anke

ttu

nic

othe

r it

ems

TC

L 9

85-

9090

--

-1

š2

1/3

1a

muΩ

iptu

-gar

men

t and

a[x

]-ga

rmen

t

YOS

3 69

-60

12

1

BM

114

558

Nb[

x] 1

101.

25 1

22

1[x

]0.

3 12

3

3 go

ats

for

180

men

for

4 ?

mon

ths ;

5

min

as o

f woo

l per

per

son

for

blan

kets

; [x]

silv

er a

s th

eir

ebªr

u

UC

P 9/

2 24

Nbk

26-

XII

-11

91.1

21

1-

20 k

ids

for

180

? m

en; 5

min

as o

f w

ool p

er p

erso

n pe

r ye

ar

NC

BT

686

Nbk

32

90 (

11x)

72 (

5x)

105

(2

x)

90

- 12

4

1 š

GC

1 2

06N

bk 3

9-I-

2590

AUW

E 5

110

Nbk

42-

VI-

12

2 12

5

NC

BT

561

Ner

acc

-IX

-11

11

0.3

1(m

ule/

27 l

of b

arle

y pe

r m

onth

)

YOS

19 2

28N

bn 1

-IX

-12

1 š

21

YOS

19 2

89N

bn 3

-IX

-29

11

[x]

- 12

6

GC

1 4

05N

bn 5

-IV

-19

-1

š1

11

⁄am

banû

tu

BM

113

264

Cam

b 4-

I-11

101.

6 1

27

11

0.3 1

28

8 go

ats

for

180

men

for

8 m

onth

s ;

3 m

inas

of s

ilver

as

thei

r eb

ªru

Tabl

e 1a

: R

ates

in U

ruk.


text

date

barl

eyda

tes

flou

rsa

ltcr

ess

oil

silv

ersh

oes

nª†u

blan

ket

tuni

cot

her

item

s

BM

650

55

(MG

)-

120

- 12

9[x

][x

]1

š[x

][x

]1

1ad

diti

onal

[x]

š o

f silv

er

prov

ided

for

riki

s qab

li

BM

498

24

(MG

)N

bk 3

-VII

I6

0.4

0.4

0.33

1 š

180

litre

s of

fl ou

r fo

r 2

men

and

15

mon

ths

BM

788

28

(MG

)N

bk

28-I

V-2

318

00.

750.

750.

43

š 13

01

1

CT

56

653

(Nbn

) 3-

VI-

196

0.75

[x]

0.75

1 š

11

11

head

gear

CT

56

26N

bn 5

-IV

-10

180

0.5

0.5

0.5

1 ? š 1

31

[x]

[x]

11

CT

56

650

Nbn

11

+ -[x

]-13

--

-1

š1

11

⁄am

banû

tu, 1

sac

k,

1 [x

]

Nbn

. 824

Nbn

14

-[x]

-26

180

0.4

0.2

[1 ? ]+

2/3

š1

11

11

head

gear

CT

56

429

Nbn

14-

XI-

1518

010

--

[-]

1 š

[x]

11

1 he

adge

ar

BM

647

07

(WZ

KM

88,

17

7f.)

Cam

7-V

-[x]

0.5

0.5

0.25

11

11

head

gear

13

2

BM

687

02

(MG

)C

am 9

0.5

0.5

[x]

[x ? ]

13

31

11

11

quiv

er, 1

lanc

e, 1

he

adge

ar, 1

[x]

, (1

donk

ey, 1

sad

dle

bag

and

2 sa

cks

per

10

peop

le)

Dar

. 253

13

4D

ar 9

-V-1

00.

50.

50.

25-

21

11

1 he

adge

ar ;

1 do

nkey

ac

com

pany

ing

4 m

en

Tabl

e 1b

: R

ates

in S

ippa

r.


text

date

flou

roi

lsa

ltcr

ess

shoe

s⁄a

mba

nûtu

blan

ket

nª†u

sack

head

gear

NB

C 4

787

-0.

5 š

4.67

š

BM

114

504

- IV

-13

0.02

š

GC

1 7

2N

bk [

x]+1

6-[x

]-26

0.02

š

GC

1 2

44N

bk 2

0+ -IX

-10

0.27

š 1

36

0.00

4 š

0.04

š

UC

P 9/

1 45

Nbk

24-

XI-

162.

5 š

YOS

19 2

28N

bn 1

-IX

-12 ?

0.33

š 1

37

0.33

š

GC

1 4

05N

bn 5

-IV

-19

0.33

š 1

38

0.33

š

GC

1 3

06N

bn 7

-II-

160.

2 š

BM

114

506

Nbn

9-I

X-2

60.

03 š

PTS

2195

Nbn

10-

VI-

70.

03 š

CT

56

650

Nbn

11+ -

[x]-

131.

38 š

0.5

š 13

9

CT

56

159

Nbn

12-

XII

-22

0.33

š0.

06 š

Nbn

. 824

Nbn

14-

[x]-

260.

33 š

0.03

š[x

]2.

25 š

0.12

5 š

BM

113

264

Cam

b 4

0.34

š 1

40

0.02

š

Tabl

e 2

: Pri

ces 1

35.


120 The rates of the edible items are given in litres per month per person. Silver rates are given in shekels (š) per month per

person. For clothes and other equipment the number of items per person for the entire duration of the campaign (up to

one year) is given. A dash in the date column indicates that either the text was not dated, or part of the date was omitted.

A dash in any other column indicates that the commodity was mentioned in the text, but no specifi c amount was given

or could be calculated.

121 5 sªtu were to be provided for 15 days per man.

122 This amount included barley and dates.

123 Actually 1.8 litres of sesame were provided per man per month. Following the extraction rate of 6:1, this amount is equivalent

to 0.3 litres of sesame oil.

124 1.25 shekels was Ωidºtu of one PN and one širku, presumably for a month, since all the other entries in the text were for a

month’s period. However, there is no telling how this amount was split between the two persons.

125 Another allotment of six litres of cress (designated as šá ⁄a-ra-né-e, and interpreted by Gehlken 1990: 95 as “from the ⁄arû-

offerings”) was recorded in this text and received by one PN. However, no further specifi cations as to the period covered

were given.

126 Oil, cress and salt issued are described as rations of 25 musa⁄⁄irª of PN. An additional note about 20 pairs of shoes (without

further details about the recipients) is included on the lower edge of the tablet.

127 This amount included barley and dates.

128 See note 123.

129 Three litres of salt were provided per person, but the duration of the mission is not stated. The ration would have provided

0.5 litres per month for six months or 0.75 litres for four months.

130 Two minas of silver were provided for four men for a period of ten months.

131 Seven shekels were provided for two people of which one received his provisions for two months and the other for four

months. A monthly 1 š allotment was probably intended (in total 6 š), with an additional 1 š (unless we are dealing with

a scribal error in the fi rst place), the purpose of which is not revealed to us.

132 Other items were probably also provided, but we do not know which and in what quantities owing to a break obliterating

the fi rst line of the text.

133 The tablet breaks off and it is not certain whether provisions for silver allotments were also made.

134 The text is edited by Joannès 1982a : 18. According to his understanding, one horseman, without specifi ed provisions, was accompa-

nied by 12 men on a campaign lasting three years. A different interpretation of the text is proposed here. It lists the provisions for

four horsemen, all of which are named in lines 11-13 (one of the names had been erased, though), for a period of three years. Thus

the twelve blankets, tunics, headgears, etc., were intended to be distributed one piece a year to each man (3 for each man).

135 The silver prices (in shekels) listed for victuals are for one litre of the given commodity. The price of salt is per kilogram.

The prices of the other items are per piece.

136 5.25 š are said to be the price of three n™sepu-vessels (plus ?) one litre of oil. Assuming the volume of the n™sepu was six litres

this is the price one gets. However, other values for the n™sepu are also possible, which makes this price uncertain.

137 Two nª†ª and four pairs of shoes are priced at 2 shekels of silver. If all items are assumed to cost the same this

gives a price of 1/3 shekel per item. This fi ts in with the same price already attested for shoes in GC 1 405.

138 This pair of shoes is designated as ⁄ambanûtu. It is probable that there is no difference between š™nª

⁄ambanûtu and ⁄ambanûtu, the latter term being an abbreviation of the former.

139 The text is somewhat damaged but probably 1 š [of silver] was intended for two sacks.

140 Actually the price of sesame (0.06 š per litre) is given in the text. The price of oil is derived from the seed

to oil ratio (6:1).


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Travel provisions in Babylonia in the first millennium BC

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