Elusive Silver: In Search of a Role for a Market in an Agrarian Environment: Aspects of Mesopotamian Society.

• Author: Dandamayev, M.A.
• Position: Book Review

Elusive Silver: In Search of a Role for a Market in an Agrarian Environment: Aspects of Mesopotamian Society. By G. VAN DRIEL. Leiden: NEDERLANDS INSTITUUT VOOR HET NABIJE OOSTEN, 2002. Pp. ix + 345. [euro]50 (paper).

The volume under review consists of three parts, each supplied with separate lists of bibliographical references: "Merchants and the Problematic Market in Texts from Ur III Umma and Nippur" (pp. 1-30), "Mesopotamian Prebends: Financing the Clergy" (pp. 31-151), "Mesopotamian Taxation and Land Use in the Neo-Babylonian Period: The King, the Land and the Subject" (pp. 153-324), plus "A Postscript: the Factor Silver" (pp. 326-28). All these studies also consider the role of the market in ancient Mesopotamia from the third millennium until the end of the Achaemenid period (fourth century B.C.), where silver had to be earned for agricultural products through foreign trade. I begin with some of the main conclusions of the book.

In the late third millennium in Umma and other Sumerian cities, institutions (temples and palace) supplied merchants (damkars) with local agrarian production (barley, dates, fish, and wool) in order that they could provide authorities with basic raw materials (in particular, tin and copper) that were necessary for the cult and building projects. Thus, the merchants occupied an intermediate position between local producers and the market. Already from the late third millennium a market for grain had existed in Sumerian cities, and this also stimulated a labor market. But it did not yet create a market economy, where supply and demand dominated.

In the second part of the book the author investigates the question of how the cult was funded in Mesopotamia. From the third millennium onwards certain groups of institutional personnel constituted an important social group of prebendaries. Members of this elite participated in cultic rituals and were remunerated for their functions. Such a prebendal system continued to exist until the end of the Hellenistic period. This elite consisted not only of individuals of priestly status who were cultic functionaries, but also of some groups of craftsmen. Among individuals with prebendal status there were also brewers, bakers, butchers, fishermen, and herdsmen. There is also evidence for some individuals who lived in Uruk but possessed prebends in the neighboring city of Larsa. In addition, some high-ranking temple officials also belonged to the group of prebendaries. However...