The sales of fields are very numerous. They were usually situated outside the city walls, in the ugaru, or townland. They were not, however, reckoned outside the “town.” For the town extended beyond its walls, like a parish in England; and was bounded, as a rule, by adjoining towns. In the case of Sippara, many of these ugarê are named; but as a rule, the names do not explain themselves. Thus, Azarim, Ḥiganim, and Shikat Malkat may be named after persons or temples. Other names, like Shutpalu, Nagû, Iblê, Tapirtum, may well be significant. Certainly, Ebirtim appears to mean “across” the Euphrates. Once the field is said to be in Sippara,[639] once in Ḥalḫalla,[640] but we cannot press these statements to mean “within the walls” of those cities. Usually, the boundaries of a field are four other fields, with now and then a road, or canal. The price per SAR varied from one-thirtieth of a shekel[641] to more than a mina. Very frequently, indeed, the price is simply said to be “full.”
In Assyrian times
The fields in Assyrian times are often mentioned. Nearly always when a field, eḳlu, is sold, it is somewhere else referred to as bîtu, or plot, usually of so many homers in size. There is nothing distinctive about the sale formula. The specifications give most interesting and valuable data as to the topography of the land around Nineveh.[642] The accessories of a field may be named. Sometimes it was corn-land, šê zêr, part was tabrû, “open land,” part adru, enclosed by [pg 249] a wall or fence. Pits or wells, canals or ditches, courts or folds, occur frequently as adjuncts of a field.
Great estates
Larger estates are built up of the simple elements which we have noted. Sometimes the estate was so large as to be styled a “city,” alu šê. These “cities” are generally called after the name of some one, probably a former owner. But the number of people sold in them does not justify the use of any larger designation than “hamlet.” A large estate, with a few people on it, obviously its bailiffs and the serfs of its landlord, constituted the alu. Hence, this term, like bîtu, must have a wider signification than that usually given it. Such hamlets were, doubtless, the germs of future cities, but the term evidently denotes simply a settled abode of a group of people.
Plans of estates
From very early times the Babylonians drew plans of estates, which are in many ways very instructive. The seated statue of Gudea, found by De Sarzec at Telloh, has a plan of his city upon a tablet on his lap, accompanied by a scale of dimensions or a standard of length.[643]
Professor Oppert, Dr. Eisenlohr, M. Thureau-Dangin, and others have discussed at length the plan of a field,[644] which has the sides of several plots given in linear measure and the areas in square measure. From this was obtained a great variety of results regarding the relations between the measures.[645]