The weaving accounts
In Assyrian times we have great wool and weaving accounts. Some deal with the huge amounts of wool received as tribute from the great cities of the empire and then served out to bodies of weavers in various palaces with specifications of the species of cloth or sorts of garments which were to be returned. In the later Babylonian times we have a large number of wool accounts recording [pg 301] the amounts given out from the temple to various persons to weave or make up into garments.[786]
Memoranda regarding skins of animals
Skins are also named in the accounts. They are distinguished as the skins of certain kinds of animals. Various amounts are credited to different persons, but whether as giving or receiving, and in what capacity, is not clear. Sheep and goat skins are most common, but ox and cow hides are named.
Leather
The Code does not refer to these, nor the letters of Ḥammurabi and his successors, but we have lists of skins and carcasses of animals.[787] The purpose of the lists is not clear. In Assyrian times there are frequent references to hides. There was a distinct grade of official called a ṣârip taḫšê, “dyer of skins.” Large quantities were bought in the markets of Kalaḫ and Ḥarrân. The price was about two shekels of silver for a skin.[788] The articles made of leather are very numerous; shoes, harness, pouches, even garments, are named. It was used for buckets, baskets, bottles, shields, and many other things not clearly recognized.
Amounts allowed for the food of animals
Fairly frequent also are accounts of the quantities of corn expended for the keep of flocks and herds. The amounts allowed per diem are the chief items of interest. Sheep were allowed from one to one and a half ḲA a day, lambs half a ḲA, oxen six to eight ḲA.[789] In the Code we find allowances for the keep of animals. There are very frequent lists in Assyrian times of amounts of corn given to various animals. These also occur at later times. The amounts allowed per day are various and by no means [pg 302] uniform. A very good example gives as the allowance of corn for a full-grown sheep two ḲA per diem, for a young sheep, one ḲA, for a lamb one-half ḲA.[790]
Acknowledgment of advances
Acknowledgments of advances, or loans, occur in the first epoch. As a rule, we are not told what was the ground of the loan. The fact that these loans were to be repaid is not stated, and we may take the tablets to be merely receipts for things given out to officials who had a right to them. The substances were corn of different kinds, wine, beer, sesame-wine, butter, flour and other food-stuffs, wool, and other supplies. We sometimes learn prices from these tablets. Thus a GUR of corn cost one shekel.[791]