The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1901-05-17
CHALDEAN FARMING.
HOW AGRICULTURAL RECORDS WERE
KEPT IN B. c. 2400.

lFOu Lue eA AplOldIlOuS III LS1 ~ aHu
Chaldea, especially in the latter, no
Phase of life seems likely to remain un-
touched. Trade and commerce are
by thousands Of contract
tablets extending back to a period of
more than thirty centuries before our
era. Law may be studied from the
contemporary records Of all ages, and
the new collection now on exhibition
in the Babylonian room of the British
Museum deals with most important
and interesting section of national life.
Herodotus, Straho and other classi-
cal writer's have testified to the i'm
mense fertility Of the Mesopotamian
Valley, where cereals yielded a hun
dredfold increse. 1t was, We know, tie
granary of the Persian Empire, but it
was little imagined that there would
be rescued from ruins of Chaldean
city the complete records and statis-
tics of Board of Inland Revenue and
which organized the af-
fairs of the State at as remote an age
as 24OO BIC.
A few years ago the trustees of the
British Museum obtained collection
of several thousand tablets, in wonder
tul preservation, which related to the
fiscal affairs of Southern Chal,lea, un-
der the rule of the second dynasty of
Ur, and the perfectly organized system
which they reveal is indeed astonishing.
The tablets come from Sirpurra-thc
modern Tello, on the Shat-el-Hie-
which ems to have been the center
of local government.
At the period to which those docu-
ments belong Babylonia was covered
by a vast network of main and irriga-
tion canals, bordered by rich and fer
tile fields. The revenue to support
the State and temples was collected in
kind and necessitated an organized bu-
reau of officials. This we know to
have existed from earlier times, and
the inscription Of Manishtisu, dating
from at least 1000 B. c., which was
found at Susa, and the contract tab
lets of Sargon l, $500 B. c., not in
the Imperial Museum at Canstantino-
pie, mention both "sarveyors" and
"tax collectors"
The first essential OF a system Of tax
alton was an accurate survey and val
uation of the land, and this we see had
been completed.
From the inscription of Manishtsu,
the oldest known commercial record
we have an illustration of this value OF
land 10y corn value. A field of 1881
fedden has corn value of ,27S quar-.
ters the money value is obtained by
estimating the corn at one shekel a
quarter and the price of the land is,
therefore, SO talents 33 mana The
most interesting feature of the large
account tablets dealing with tn" corn
revenue here exhibited is the Wonder
full accuracy of the bookkeeping. Some
of the large tablets contain summa.
tions of hundreds of thousands Of quar-
ters and calculations of minute frac-
tions, yet the errors are very few in
deed.
The large account tablets are care
fully dated and attested with the name
of the collectors. Thus we read "The
account and return of the Ur Lamassu
of the Temple of Ningirsu, overseer.
From the month Airu to
the month Nlsan, for l3 months in the
year, when Kharsi and khumurti
were spoiled" A word must be said
as to the calendar in use. 1t was es-
sentially a farmers calendar, having
the months named, "Month of corn
raising" "Corn cutting" "The month
when the fields are bright" "The
month when the cattle are in the open,
"'The month of sowing"
Next to the tablets relating to the
corn crop of the land the most impor-
tant, perhaps, are those recording the
farm stock, the hocks and herds. Ac-
cording to the law all stock had to be
presented for registration every year.
In some cases the herds were brought
to the local temple to be registered, in
others the overscers visited them and
made their report. There are many
hundreds of these returns in the col
lection. The larger tablets are too
long for quotation, but, as an example,
we may quote the following: "Seven
hundred and thirty seven ewes, 755
male sheep, l3S eve lambs, l49 male
lambs, 20 goats; in all presented 1899"
This amount, for brevity, is expressed
as 1901. Next we have the de-
ductions, 33 ewes and AZ rams, wages,
and l03 ewes, eight rams, 40 lambs,
expenditure-that is, had been used
for food or sacrifice since the last cen
sus. Sometimes we have the entry of
dead or missing, but in every case the
accounts are most accurately kept.
A word must be said as to labor, for
many of the tablets contain lists of
men employed on the farms and es.
tates. They were supplied with food