A History of Babylon, from the Foundation of the Monarchy to the Persian Conquest

by L. W. King

THE OLD BABYLONIAN FORM OF PLOUGH IN USE.

The drawing is taken from seal-impressions on a tablet of the Kassite period.

(After Clay.)

The manner in which the agricultural implements employed in early Babylonia have survived to the present day is well illustrated by their form of plough, which closely resembles that still in use in parts of Syria. We have no representation of the plough of the First Babylonian Dynasty, but this was doubtless the same as that of the Kassite period, of which a very interesting representation has recently been recovered. On a tablet found at Nippur and dated in the fourth year of Nazi-Maruttash, are several impressions of a cylinder-seal engraved with a representation of three men ploughing.[16] The plough is drawn by two humped bulls, or zebu, who are being driven by one of the men, while another holds the two handles of the plough and guides it. The third man has a bag of seed-corn slung over his shoulders and is in the act of feeding seed with his right hand into a tube or grain-drill, down which it passed into the furrow made by the plough. At the top of the tube is a bowl, with a hole in the bottom opening on to the tube, which acted as a funnel and enabled the sower to drop the seed in without scattering it. This is the earliest representation of the Babylonian plough that we possess, and its value is increased by the fact that the plough is seen in operation. The same seed-drill occurs in three later representations. One of these also dates from the Kassite period, being found upon a boundary-stone of the period of Meli-Shipak II.,[17] on which it is sculptured as the sacred symbol of Geshtinna, the goddess of the plough.[18] The other two are of the Assyrian period, one being represented in enamelled brick on the walls of the palace at Khorsabad,[19] the other being carved among the symbols on the Black Stone of Esarhaddon, on which he gives an account of his restoration of Babylon.[20] Similar ploughs, with grain-drills of precisely the same structure, are still used in Syria at the present time.[21]

Before ploughing and sowing his land the Babylonian farmer prepared it for irrigation by dividing it up into a number of small squares or oblong patches, each separated from the others by a low bank of earth. Some of the banks, that ran lengthways through the field, were made into small channels, the ends of which were connected with his main irrigation-stream. No gates nor sluices were employed, and, when he wished to water one of his fields, he simply broke away the bank opposite one of his small channels and let the water flow into it. When it reached the part of his land he wished to water, he blocked the channel with a little earth and broke down its bank so that the water flowed over one of the small squares and soaked it.

A MODERN GUFA.
Photo by Messrs. Underwood & Underwood.

He could then repeat the process with the next square, and so on, afterwards returning to the main channel and stopping the flow of water by blocking up the hole he had made in the bank. Such is the present process of irrigation in Mesopotamia, and there is no doubt that it was adopted by the early Babylonians. It was extremely simple, but needed care and vigilance, especially when water was being carried into several parts of an estate at once. Moreover, one main channel often supplied the fields of several farmers, and, in return for his share of the water, it was the duty of each man to keep its banks, where it crossed his land, in repair. If he failed to do so and the water forced a breach and flooded his neighbour's field, he had to pay compensation in kind for any crop that was ruined, and, if he could not pay, his goods were sold, and his neighbours, whose fields had been damaged, shared the proceeds of the sale. Similarly, if a farmer left his water running and forgot to shut it off, he had to pay compensation for any damage it might do to a neighbouring crop.

The date-palm formed the chief secondary source of the country's wealth, for it grew luxuriantly in the alluvium and supplied the Babylonians with one of their principal articles of diet.[22] From it, too, they made a fermented wine, and a species of flour for baking; its sap yielded palm-sugar, and its fibrous bark was suitable for weaving ropes, while its trunk furnished a light but tough building-material. The early Babylonian kings encouraged the laying out of date-plantations and the planting of gardens and orchards; and special regulations were made with that object in view. For a man could obtain a field for the purpose without paying a yearly rent. He could plant and tend it for four years, and in the fifth year of his tenancy the original owner of the land took half the garden in payment, while the planter kept the other half for himself. Care was taken to see that the bargain was properly carried out, for, if a bare patch had been left in the plantation, it was reckoned in the planter's half; and should the tenant neglect the trees during his first four years of occupation, he was still liable to plant the whole plot without receiving his half of it, and he had to pay compensation in addition, which varied in amount according to the original condition of the land. In this way the authorities ensured that land should not be taken over and allowed to deteriorate. For the hire of a plantation the rent was fixed at two-thirds of its produce, the tenant providing all labour and supplying the necessary irrigation-water.