Chapter VI: Trades, Houses, and Land; Wages and Prices (2)

The brick-maker was also a potter, and the manifold products of the potter’s skill, for which Babylonia was celebrated, were manufactured in the corner of the brick-field. Here also were made the tablets, which were handed to the professional scribe or the ordinary citizen to be written upon, and so take the place of the papyrus of ancient Egypt or the paper of to-day. The brick-maker was thus not only a potter, but the provider of literary materials as well. He might even be compared with the printer of the modern world, since texts were occasionally cut in wood and so impressed upon moulds of clay, which, after being hardened, were used as stamps, by means of which the texts could be multiplied, impressions of them being mechanically reproduced on other tablets or cylinders of clay.

Another Babylonian trade which must be noticed was that of the vintner. Wine was made from dates as well as from grapes, while beer, called _sikaru_, was also manufactured, probably from some cereal grain. Mention is found of a “wine” that was made from sesame. The vine was not a native of Babylonia, but must have been introduced into it from the highlands of Armenia at a very early date, as it was known there long before the days of Sargon of Akkad. Large quantities of wine and beer were drunk in both Babylonia and Assyria, and reference has already been made to the bas-relief in which the Assyrian King, Assur-bani-pal, and his Queen are depicted drinking wine in the gardens of his palace, while the head of his vanquished foe, the King of Elam, hangs from the branch of a neighboring tree. A receipt, dated the eleventh day of Iyyar, in the first year of Nabonidos, is for the conveyance of “75 _qas_ of meal and 63 _qas_ of beer for the sustenance of the artisans;” and in the thirty-eighth year of Nebuchadnezzar 20 shekels were paid for “beer,” the amount of which, however, is unfortunately not stated. But two “large” casks of new wine cost 11 shekels, and five other smaller casks 10 shekels. Moreover, the inventory of goods to be handed over to the slave Khunnatu, in the sixth year of Cambyses, includes fifty casks of “good beer,” which, together with the cup with which it was drawn, was valued at 60 shekels (£9).

Whether any grape-wine was made in Babylonia itself was questionable; at any rate, the greater part of that which was drunk there was imported from abroad, more especially from Armenia and Syria. The wines of the Lebanon were specially prized, the wine of Khilbunu, or Helbon, holding a chief place among them. The wines, some of which were described as “white,” were distinguished by the names of the localities where they were made or in which the vines were grown, and Nebuchadnezzar gives the following list of them: The wine of Izalla, in Armenia; of Tuhimmu, of Zimmini, of Helbon, of Amabanu, of the Shuhites, of Bit-Kubati, in Elam; of Opis and of Bitati, in Armenia. To these another list adds: “The wine reserved for the king’s drinking,” and the wines of Nazahzê, of Lahû, and of the Khabur.

The wine was kept in wine-cellars, and among the Assyrian letters that have come down to us are some from the cellarers of the King. In one of them it is stated that the wine received in the month Tebet had been bottled, and that there was no room in the royal cellars in which it could be stored. The King is therefore asked to allow new cellars to be made.

The various trades formed guilds or corporations, and those who wished to enter one of these had to be apprenticed for a fixed number of years in order to learn the craft. As we have seen, slaves could be thus apprenticed by their owners and in this way become members of a guild. What the exact relation was between the slave and the free members of a trading guild we do not know, but it is probable that the slave was regarded as the representative of his master or mistress, who accordingly became, instead of himself, the real member of the corporation. We perhaps have a parallel in modern England, where a person can be elected a member of one of the “city companies,” or trade guilds, without being in any way connected with the trade himself. Since women in Babylonia were able to carry on a business, there would be no obstacle to a slave being apprenticed to a trade by his mistress. Hence it is that we find a Babylonian lady named Nubtâ, in the second year of Cyrus, apprenticing a slave to a weaver for five years. Nubtâ engaged to provide the apprentice with clothing and 1 _qa_ (nearly 2 quarts) of grain each day. As in ancient Greece a quart of grain was considered a sufficient daily allowance for a man, the slave’s allowance would seem to have been ample. The teacher was to be heavily fined if he failed to teach the trade, or overworked the apprentice and so made him unable to learn it, the fine being fixed at 6 _qas_ (about 10 quarts) _per diem_. Any infringement of the contract on either side was further to be visited with a penalty of 30 shekels of silver.

As 30 shekels of silver were equivalent to £4 10s., 6 _qas_ of wheat at the time when the contract was drawn up would have cost about 1s. 3d. Under Nebuchadnezzar we find 12 _qas_, or the third part of an ardeb, of sesame sold for half a shekel, which would make the cost of a single quart a little more than a penny. In the twelfth year of Nabonidos 60 shekels, or £9, were paid for 6 _gur_ of sesame, and since the _gur_ contained 5 ardebs, according to Dr. Oppert’s calculation, the quart of sesame would have been a little less than 1½d. When we come to the reign of Cambyses we hear of 6½ shekels being paid for 2 ardebs, or about 100 quarts, of wheat; that would give 2½d. as the approximate value of a single _qa_. It would therefore have cost Nubtâ about 2½d. a day to feed a slave.

It must, however, be remembered that the price of grain varied from year to year. In years of scarcity the price rose; when the crops were plentiful it necessarily fell. To a certain extent the annual value was equalized by the large exportation of grain to foreign countries, to which reference is made in many of the contract-tablets; the institution of royal or public store-houses, moreover, called _sutummê_, tended to keep the price of it steady and uniform. Nevertheless, bad seasons sometimes occurred, and there were consequent fluctuations in prices. This was more especially the case as regards the second staple of Babylonian food and standard of value—dates. These seem to have been mostly consumed in Babylonia itself, and, though large quantities of them were accumulated in the royal storehouses, it was upon a smaller scale than in the case of the grain. Hence we need not be surprised if we find that while in the seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar a shekel was paid for 1-1/3 ardebs of dates, or about a halfpenny a quart, in the thirtieth year of the same reign the price had fallen to one-twenty-fifth of a penny per quart. A little later, in the first year of Cambyses, 100 _gur_ of dates was valued at 2½ shekels (7s. 6d.), the _gur_ containing 180 _qas_, which gives 2d. per each _qa_, and in the second year of Cyrus a receipt for the payment of “the workmen of the overseer” states that the following amount of dates had been given from “the royal store-house” for their “food” during the month Tebet: “Fifty _gur_ for the 50 workmen, 10 _gur_ for 10 shield-bearers, 2 _gur_ for the overseer, 1 _gur_ for the chief overseer; in all, 63 _gurs_ of dates.” It was consequently calculated that a workman would consume a _gur_ of dates a month, the month consisting of thirty days.

About the same period, in the first year of Cyrus, after his conquest of Babylon, we hear of two men receiving 2 _pi_ 30 _qas_ (102 _qas_) of grain for the month Tammuz. Each man accordingly received a little over a _qa_ a day, the wage being practically the same as that paid by Nubtâ to the slave. On the other hand, a receipt dated in the fifteenth year of Nabonidos is for 2 _pi_ (72 _qas_) of grain, and 54 _qas_ of dates were paid to the captain of a boat for the conveyance of mortar, to serve as “food” during the month Tebet. As “salt and vegetables” were also added, it is probable that the captain was expected to share the food with his crew. A week previously 8 shekels had been given for 91 _gur_ of dates owed by the city of Pallukkatum, on the Pallacopas canal, to the temple of Uru at Sippara, but the money was probably paid for porterage only. At all events, five years earlier a shekel and a quarter had been paid for the hire of a boat which conveyed three oxen and twenty-four sheep, the offering made by Belshazzar “in the month Nisan to Samas and the gods of Sippara,” while 60 _qas_ of dates were assigned to the two boatmen for food. This would have been a _qa_ of dates _per diem_ for each boatman, supposing the voyage was intended to last a month. In the ninth year of Nabonidos 2 _gur_ of dates were given to a man as his nourishment for two months, which would have been at the rate of 6 _qas_ a day. In the thirty-second year of the same reign 36 _qas_ of dates were valued at a shekel, or a penny a _qa_.

In the older period of Babylonian history prices were reckoned in grain, and, as might be expected, payment was made in kind rather than in coin. In the reign of Ammi-zadok, for instance, 3 homers 24⅔ _qas_ of oil, though valued at 20⅔ shekels of silver, were actually bought with “white Kurdish slaves,” it being stipulated that if the slaves were not forthcoming the purchaser would have to pay for the oil in cash. A thousand years later, under Merodach-nadin-akhi, cash had become the necessary medium of exchange. A cart and harness were sold for 100 shekels, six riding-horses for 300 shekels, one “ass from the West” for 130 shekels, one steer for 30 shekels, 34 _gur_ 56 _qas_ of grain for 137 shekels, 2 homers 40 _qas_ of oil for 16 shekels, two long-sleeved robes for 12 shekels, and nine shawls for 18 shekels.

From this time forward we hear no more of payment in kind, except where wages were paid in food, or where tithes and other offerings were made to the temples. Though the current price of wheat continued to fix the market standard of value, business was conducted by means of stamped money. The shekel and the maneh were the only medium of exchange.

There are numerous materials for ascertaining the average prices of commodities in the later days of Babylonian history. We have already seen what prices were given for sheep and wool, as well as the cost of some of the articles of household use. In the thirty-eighth year of Nebuchadnezzar 100 _gur_ of wheat were valued at only 1 maneh—that is to say, the _qa_ of wheat was worth only the hundredth part of a shilling—while at the same time the price of dates was exactly one-half that amount. On the other hand, in the fourth year of Cambyses 72 _qas_ of sesame were sold at Sippara for 6½ shekels, or 19s. 6d. This would make the cereal worth approximately 1½d. a quart, the same price as that at which it was sold in the twelfth year of Nabonidos. In the second year of Nergal-sharezer twenty-one strings of onions fetched as much as 10 shekels, and a year later 96 shekels were given for onion bulbs for planting. Sheep in the reign of Cambyses fetched 7 and 7¼ shekels each, while 10 shekels were given for an ox, and 22½ shekels for a steer two years old. In the twenty-fourth year of Nebuchadnezzar 13 shekels had been paid for a full-grown ox, and as much as 67 shekels in the fourth year of Nabonidos, while in the first year of Evil-Merodach a cow was sold for 15 shekels. The ass was in more request, especially if it was of “Western” breed. In the reign of Merodach-nadin-akhi, it will be remembered, as much as 130 shekels had been paid for one of these, as compared with 30 shekels given for an ox, and though at a subsequent period the prices were lower, the animal was still valued highly. In the year of the death of Cyrus a Babylonian gentleman bought “a mouse-colored ass, eight years old, without blemish,” for 50 shekels (£7 10s.), and shortly afterward another was purchased for 32 shekels. At the same time, however, an ass of inferior quality went for only 13 shekels. When we consider that only three years later a shekel was considered sufficient wages for a butcher for a month’s work, we can better estimate what these prices signify. Nevertheless, the value of the ass seems to have been steadily going down in Babylonia; at all events, in the fourth year of Nabonidos, 1 maneh, or 60 shekels, was demanded for one, and the animal does not seem to have been in any way superior to another which was sold for 50 shekels a few years afterward.

Clothes and woven stuffs were naturally of all prices. In the time of Nebuchadnezzar a cloak or overcoat used by the mountaineers cost only 4½ shekels, though under Cambyses we hear of 58 shekels being charged for eight of the same articles of dress, which were supplied to the “bowmen” of the army. Three years earlier 7½ shekels had been paid for two of these cloaks. About the same time ten sleeved gowns cost 35 shekels.

Metal was more expensive. As has already been noticed, a copper libation-bowl and cup were sold for 4 manehs 9 shekels (£37 7s.), and two copper dishes, weighing 7½ manehs (19 pounds 8 ounces. troy), were valued at 22 shekels. The skilled labor expended upon the work was the least part of the cost. The workman was supplied with his materials by the customer, and received only the value of his labor. What this was can be gathered from a receipt dated the 11th day of Chisleu, in the fourteenth year of Nabonidos, recording the payment of 4 shekels to “the ironsmith,” Suqâ, for making certain objects out of 3⅚ manehs of iron which had been handed over to him.

The cost of bricks and reeds has already been described. Bitumen was more valuable. In the fourteenth year of Nabonidos a contract was made to supply five hundred loads of it for 50 shekels, while at the same time the wooden handle of an ax was estimated at one shekel. Five years previously only 2 shekels had been given for three hundred wooden handles, but they were doubtless intended for knives. In the sixth year of Nabonidos the grandson of the priest of Sippara undertook to supply “bricks, reeds, beams, doors, and chopped straw for building the house of Rimut” for 12 manehs of silver, or £108. The wages of the workmen were not included in the contract.

With these prices it is instructive to compare those recorded on contract-tablets of the age of the third dynasty of Ur, which preceded that under which Abraham was born. These tablets, though very numerous, have as yet been but little examined, and the system of weights and measures which they contain is still but imperfectly known. We learn from them that bitumen could be purchased at the time at the rate of half a shekel of silver for each talent of 60 manehs, and that logs of wood imported from abroad were sold at the rate of eight, ten, twelve, and sixty logs a shekel, the price varying according to the nature of the wood. Prices, however, as might be expected, are usually calculated in grain, oil, and the like, and the exact relation of these to the shekel and maneh has still to be determined.

The average wages of the workmen can be more easily fixed. Contracts dated in the reign of Khammurabi, the Amraphel of Genesis, and found at Sippara, show that it was at the rate of about 4 shekels a year, the laborer’s food being usually thrown in as well. Thus in one of these contracts we read: “Rimmon-bani has hired Sumi-izzitim for his brother, as a laborer, for three months, his wages to be one shekel and a half of silver, three measures of flour, and 1 _qa_ and a half of oil. There shall be no withdrawal from the agreement. Ibni-amurru and Sikni-Anunit have endorsed it. Rimmon-bani has hired the laborer in the presence of Abum-ilu (Abimael), the son of Ibni-samas, of Ili-su-ibni, the son of Igas-Rimmon; and Arad-Bel, the son of Akhuwam.”(7) Then follows the date. Another contract of the same age is of much the same tenor. “Nur-Rimmon has taken Idiyatum, the son of Ili-kamma, from Naram-bani, to work for him for a year at a yearly wage of 4½ shekels of silver. At the beginning of the month Sebat, Idiyatum shall enter upon his service, and in the month Iyyar it shall come to an end and he shall quit it. Witnessed by Beltani, the daughter of Araz-za; by Beltani, the daughter of Mudadum; by Amat-Samas, the daughter of Asarid-ili; by Arad-izzitim, the son of Samas-mutasi; and by Amat-Bau, the priestess (?); the year when the Temple of the Abundance of Rimmon (was built by Khammurabi).” It will be noticed that with one exception the witnesses to this document are all women.

There was but little rise in wages in subsequent centuries. A butcher was paid only 1 shekel for a month’s work in the third year of Cambyses, as has been noticed above, and even skilled labor was not much better remunerated. In the first year of Cambyses, for instance, only half a shekel was paid for painting the stucco of a wall, though in the same year 67 shekels (£10 1s.) were given to a seal-cutter for a month’s labor. Slavery prevented wages from rising by flooding the labor market, and the free artisan had to compete with a vast body of slaves. Hence it was that unskilled work was still so commonly paid in kind rather than in coin, and that the workman was content if his employer provided him with food. Thus in the second year of Nabonidos we are told that the “coppersmith,” Libludh, received 7 _qas_ (about 8½ quarts) of flour for overlaying a chariot with copper, and in the seventeenth year of the same reign half a shekel of silver and 1 _gur_ of wheat from the royal storehouse were paid to five men who had brought a flock of sheep to the King’s administrator in the city of Ruzabu. The following laconic letter also tells the same tale: “Letter from Tabik-zeri to Gula-ibni, my brother. Give 54 _qas_ of meal to the men who have dug the canal. The 9th of Nisan, fifth year of Cyrus, King of Eridu, King of the World.” The employer had a right to the workman’s labor so long as he furnished him with food and clothing.