With their arts and crafts we have dealt elsewhere, as also with their architectural remains, which however afford us little or no information regarding the structure of private dwelling-places, but from the literature we learn that wood as well as brick was used more extensively in their building operations than we should suppose. Wool formed the principal material for making clothes, though linen was also possibly manufactured,[179] while fur was sometimes worn, presumably in the cold weather.
Business transactions were made by contracts, the transactions in question usually having reference to the sale of slaves, animals or other property. The validity of the contracts apparently depended upon their being duly attested, as in later times, the witnesses receiving gifts for their services. In regard to the purchase of slaves, and the price which they fetched in the market, it is a significant fact that according to the stele of Manishtusu, an ass and a slave were worth exactly the same, which betrays a lack of appreciation of the superiority of the working capacity of a human being over that of a brute beast.
But the crown and the church took good care not to allow the laity the full possession of their own property, and managed to make a very comfortable livelihood for themselves by means of various impositions and taxes. Farm produce, garden fruits, fish, cattle, wool and perfumes were all levied as royal or ecclesiastical dues, while the temple sacrifices were of course for the most part mere perquisites of the priests, though the latter had to hand a goodly proportion over to their royal patron.
A civilization such as this, with its commercial enterprises and its legal transactions, of course presupposes the invention of systems for ascertaining the weights and measures of the various objects and different forms of property with which those transactions were immediately concerned. There was a square or area measure, a sine quâ non in property-conveyancing; there was a long measure, equally necessary for the sale and purchase of wood or stuffen goods, the smallest unit of which appears to have been the thumb. Then again the daily requirements of man made the invention of a measure of capacity an absolute necessity. Other modes of reckoning besides the regular metrical systems were however sometimes adopted, thus fishermen appear to have sold their fish either by number or by the basket, while liquids were measured by means of different sized vessels. Lastly there was a weight measure, which was the same in Urukagina’s time as in that of the later dynasty of Ur.
2. RELIGION
The religion of the Babylonians and Assyrians was polytheistic throughout the whole course of their history. It is true that in later times a certain tendency towards monotheism was exhibited, but it never became forcible enough to create such a revolution in the religious ideas of the people as the change from polytheism to monotheism necessarily implies. The gods worshipped in the later period of Gudea were, with the exception of Nin-gish-zi-da the personal god of Gudea, known and venerated in the time of Urukagina.[180] It is further an interesting and noteworthy fact that the name Gishgibilgemesh (Gilgamesh) is sometimes accompanied by the determinative for “god” in the literature of the time, a clear indication that even at this date the hero of Babylonian folk-lore was accredited with divine or quasi-divine attributes. The local god of Lagash was Nin-girsu; to him the land belonged, and it was he who entrusted the government of it to the king; the people of Lagash are indeed identified with their divine lord, their triumphs are his, and their wrongs are crimes against his godhead. The priest of Nin-girsu ranked immediately after the patesi himself, and his temples are entirely national in character. The very palace of the patesi was in reality the house of Nin-girsu, while that of his queen was the dwelling-place of Nin-girsu’s divine spouse, the goddess Bau. Another goddess who was deeply revered and worshipped even as early as Ur-Ninâ’s day was the Lady Ninâ, from whom the founder of the dynasty derived his royal name, while the goddess Gatumdug, in whose honour Ur-Ninâ built a temple, was regarded as the “Mother of Lagash.” En-lil, the ever famous lord of Nippur, also occupied a prominent place in the assemblage of gods at this time; he is mentioned first in the royal protocols of Eannatum and Entemena, and is also first in the divine invocations on the Vulture Stele of the former ruler.
But the influence of the powers unseen upon the minds and lives of the people is reflected in the authority of the priests. The priest, minister or servant is not in truth “greater than his lord,” but his authority and his power are entirely proportional to those enjoyed by his heaven-born master. The temptation on the part of earthly emissaries to abuse the power which their position gives them is generally found to be irresistible, and the priests of Lagash were, as we have seen, no exceptions to the all but universal rule. The power enjoyed by the high priest of Nin-girsu may be judged from the fact that both Enlitarzi and Enetarzi occupied this position before they ascended the throne.
Sacrifice formed the principal part of early Sumerian worship; animals, birds, fruit, vegetables, bread and cakes all contributing to the heavily-laden altars of the gods, and incidentally to the rapacious appetites and pockets of the priests; offerings were also made to the statues of the living and the dead, the offerings being placed on an altar close to the statue; thus a certain Shagshag seems to have derived satisfaction by placing offerings before her own effigy, while the statue of the deceased Ur-Ninâ was similarly honoured. Another interesting practice in vogue at this period was that of burning oil-lamps before the statues. The latter were apparently votive in character, and they seem to have performed the religious obligations required of the people whom they represented, to have actually offered the prayers inscribed on their lifeless bodies, and, in short, to have played the noble part of a vicarious worshipper. Without doubt this is the real explanation of the devotional attitude displayed by Gudea in his statues. Magic and divination, the ever-ready handmaids of all primitive religions, were cultivated and fervently believed in at this period as in later times, prophets, seers, and dream-interpreters being almost as much in demand as they are to-day.
A special order of priests was appointed to take funerals and perform the necessary rites and ceremonies, and they received fees or honoraria for their services. The dead required sustenance in the grave, and it was customary to place seven jars of liquor and four hundred and twenty loaves of bread beside the corpse; this custom had become virtually binding and obligatory upon the unfortunate relations of the deceased, and one of Urukagina’s reforms was the reduction of these dues.
The temples themselves, which sometimes stood in their own grounds and were surrounded by a sacred wood, were enriched with statues, vases, inscribed slabs, treasures of silver and precious stones, and luxuries of all kinds.