Granaries
Another common object of sale was a building called Ê KISLAḤ, shown by the Code[631] to be really a “granary,” or barn, read maškanu. These are usually in the city, and the prices paid for them varied from one-third of a shekel[632] [pg 247] to fifteen shekels[633] per SAR. They might be surrounded by houses on all four sides, or by a canal, road, and street.[634]
The term bîtu means not only “house,” but “field”
These examples serve to show that bîtu as often denoted a “plot” of land as a “house.”[635] In Assyrian times we find the same usage. A fairly common object of sale is what I take to be a “fuller's field,” or a “bleaching ground,” bîtu ḳaḳḳiri pûṣê. It was usually in the city, of small size, given in cubits each way, or a trifle over a homer in area. It was near a stream. It sold for a very high price. Once we find half of it used as a garden. It seemed to have been fenced in. Unfortunately, no one example is perfectly preserved; and the deeds are of no special interest beyond the peculiar nature of the plot.[636]
Sales of gardens
The gardens in the time of the First Dynasty of Babylon are generally said to be planted with dates, and sold for “full” price. Once two shekels are given for a garden of fifteen SAR.
These sales less frequent in Assyrian times
There are not many examples of these sales in Assyrian times, but they give some welcome information. There is nothing peculiar about the sale formula. The only interest is in the specifications. The garden is usually said to be planted with the iṣu tillit, almost certainly “the vine.” Hence, we may regard them as “vineyards.” The number of plants in them is often given, being as high as two thousand four hundred.[637] Of other plants grown in a Babylonian garden we can recognize with more or less certainty in The Garden Tablet,[638] garlic, onion, leek, kinds of lettuce, [pg 248] dill, cardamom, saffron, coriander, hyssop, mangold, turnip, radish, cabbage, lucerne, assafœtida, colocynth.
Other gardens are said to be kirû urḳîtu, “vegetable gardens.” In later times the date-plantations are continually in evidence. Beyond the specification, “planted with dates,” and certain obscure references to the condition of the crop at the time of sale, there is nothing to be noted.
Sales of fields: in First Dynasty of Babylon