| Rosemary Prentice |
The Exchange of Goods and Services |
AOAT 368 |
| in Pre-Sargonic Lagash | ISBN 978-3-86835-033-3 | |
| xiv + 238 pp. | ||
| 2010 | ||
| 78,- EUR |
The study of Rosemary Prentice examines the data provided by c.1800 cuneiform tablets which appear to have belonged to the archive of an institution called e2-MI2 "house of the woman", i.e. "household of the ruler’s wife", located in Girsu, in the city-state of Lagash. They document the various transactions and economic activities of that institution over a period of approximately twenty years during the latter years of the Early Dynastic period during the rule of Enentarzi, of Lugalanda, and of UruKAgina. After one year as ensi (the title used by his two predecessors) UruKAgina adopted the title lugal and the e2-MI2 was renamed the e2-dba-U2 -- the goddess Bau was the consort of Ningirsu, the patron god of Lagash. Despite the change in name, the archive appears to reflect a continuity in the administration. The archive of the e2-MI2 / dba-U2 is the largest early assemblage of accounts and records of transactions currently available from southern Mesopotamia and thus provides both a suitable and a sufficient documentation for an investigation of the exchange of goods and services. The unity of time and place provides an opportunity to take advantage of a large number of documents encapsulated in its own world and to derive an understanding of the working of an institution based on their own internal context. The texts bear witness of and the study provides new insight in the redistribution of barley rations and the reciprocity of gifts and return gifts, aspects intensively debated within Assyriology.
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Introduction |
1
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Redistribution |
13
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Redistribution in the e2-MI2/dba-U2
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17
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Barley
rations for the igi-nu-du8, il2, ša3-dub
e2-gal, ša3-dub-didli
(Type 2) |
22
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Barley
rations for the geme2-dumu (Type 3) |
52
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Barley ration
lists of Type 2 and Type 3 combined |
64
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Barley
rations for the lu2-šuku-dab5-ba (Type 1) |
69
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Wool rations |
82
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A brief
summary of redistribution in the e2-MI2/dba-U2
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90
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Redistribution: sustenance or payment? |
91
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Commercial exchange |
97
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Commercial
exchange in the e2-MI2/dba-U2 |
99
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External
exchange |
100
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Products of exchange |
106
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Discussion |
114
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Fish and Onions |
125
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Internal exchange |
129
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Price as compensation? |
146
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Summary of the evidence for commercial
exchange
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148
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Silver |
150
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Reciprocity |
153
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Reciprocity
and the e2-MI2/dba-U2
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159
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Internal reciprocity |
172
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Reciprocity as a mode of exchange |
198
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Summary and conclusions |
205
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Abbreviations |
215
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References cited |
219
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Index |
233
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