CHAPTER FOUR
GRAIN, STORAGE, AND STATE MAKING IN MESOPOTAMIA (3200–2000 BC)
Tate Paulette
Introduction
In Mesopotamia, grain was king, or, to put it more accurately, grain made kings. As we learn in a Sumerian text known as the Debate between Sheep and Grain, control over grain could be and often was transformed into control over people.
Whoever has silver, whoever has jewels, whoever has cattle, whoever has sheep shall take a seat at the gate of whoever has grain, and pass his time there. (ETCSL 5.3.2, 190–191)
The states that emerged in Mesopotamia between the fourth and the first millennium BC were fundamentally agrarian states. They were built on the production, stockpiling, and redistribution of grain, and they invested an enormous amount of energy in managing and monitoring the grain supply.
In this chapter, I draw particular attention to grain storage and its pivotal role in the rhetoric and the logistics of state making in Mesopotamia. Grain storage facilities were positioned—both physically and symbolically—at the very heart of the redistributive economy and at the very heart of the state apparatus in Mesopotamia. Grain storage, therefore, offers a unique vantage point from which to examine not only the nature of state power but also the process of state making. The earliest Mesopotamian states did not simply appear, fully formed and destined for total domination. They were made. These states were complex, often fragile, constructions, and their reach—that is, the actual extent of their authority—seldom matched the breadth of their ambitions. They were states-in-progress. In this chapter, I argue that a study of grain storage practices can help us to achieve a more accurate estimation of the shifting limits of state power and state-sponsored redistribution in Mesopotamia.
States and Storage in Mesopotamia
The evidence for grain storage in Mesopotamia is abundant, but it lies scattered in bits and pieces across many thousands of cuneiform documents and hidden deep in the pages of archaeological site reports. Significant strides have been made in recent years toward defining the technologies employed and the role of storage in Mesopotamia, thanks especially to a lively debate surrounding the interpretation of a series of sites excavated along the middle reaches of the Khabur River in Syria (e.g., Hole 1991, 1999; Schwartz 1994; Fortin 1997; Pfälzner 2002; Fortin and Schwartz 2003). Still, much work remains to be done. I have chosen to focus here on the evidence for large-scale, institutionally managed storage spaces and storage systems in southern Mesopotamia (Figure 4.1), beginning with the first hints of state-sponsored storage during the later fourth millennium BC (the Uruk period [LC5]) and ending near the end of the third millennium BC (the Ur III period) (Figure 4.2). For a more detailed treatment of the evidence and issues discussed here, with reference to both southern and northern Mesopotamia, see my recent doctoral dissertation (Paulette 2015).
Late Uruk and Jemdet Nasr Periods (ca. 3200–2900 BC)
The fourth millennium BC was a time of rapid and radical change in southern Mesopotamia. The urbanization process—which entailed not only a massive, centripetal sucking-in of population toward urban centers but also a comprehensive reworking of the rural landscape—left in its wake an entirely new settled landscape, one dominated by a few major cities, especially the city of Uruk (modern Warka). This period also witnessed the first moves toward state formation in Mesopotamia; that is, the first moves toward a new kind of institutional form—highly centralized, functionally differentiated, and claiming a monopoly on governance. Given the evidence currently available, we should hesitate before assuming that the appearance of this new institutional form, typically referred to as the state, also implies a unified, society-wide movement toward a new, tightly integrated form of political and economic organization. There can be no doubt, though, that the institutional actors who burst vividly onto the scene with the appearance of writing around 3200 BC were heavily invested in the production and distribution of grain. Many of the earliest proto-cuneiform texts, for example, document the doling out of grain rations to institutional dependents (e.g., Nissen, Damerow, and Englund 1993: 70–75), a form of redistribution that will continue to play a key role throughout the ensuing millennia.
Among the thousands of “archaic” accounting documents that date to the Late Uruk (Uruk IV) and Jemdet Nasr (Uruk III) periods, the majority revolve around the movement of grain into and out of institutional storage facilities (Englund 1998: 182). For example, a number of texts document the transfer of cereal products—especially barley groats and malted barley—into and out of a storage facility that was dedicated to the storage of ingredients for making beer (Nissen, Damerow, and Englund 1993: 36–46). In some cases, the amounts of grain involved were extremely large; for instance, one of these tablets appears to document the transfer of approximately 135,000 liters of barley over a three-year period (Nissen, Damerow, and Englund 1993: 36–37). A fragmentary text from the site of Jemdet Nasr records an even larger amount, approximately 550 tons of emmer wheat, which seems to represent the yield from several institutionally managed agricultural fields. According to Robert Englund (1998: 204–5), this quantity of wheat is the equivalent of more than a million typical monthly rations (each four-fifths of a liter), enough to support three thousand dependent workers for a year.
Unfortunately, the archaic texts have not provided any direct information about how these institutional storage facilities functioned as physical spaces. We do not know, for example, where they were located, how access was controlled, or what types of storage technology were employed. This is the kind of information that could be furnished by the archaeological record, but no clear remains of dedicated grain storage facilities dating to this period have been recovered. Although the Riemchengebäude at Uruk contained large quantities of storage vessels, it is usually interpreted as a storage space for disused temple paraphernalia (e.g., Nissen 1988: 103). The “administrative building” at Jemdet Nasr did include some possible evidence for grain storage (Moorey 1976: 101–2), but not on the scale suggested by the texts. The most vivid evidence for grain storage during this period comes from a series of seal impressions preserved on hollow clay balls and clay sealings recovered at the sites of Susa and Chogha Mish in southwestern Iran. These seal impressions depict what are almost certainly domed granaries; in some cases, workers are shown filling sacks nearby or climbing stairs or ladders to empty the contents of sacks or baskets into the granaries (Figure 4.3; Amiet 1972: pl. 16; Delougaz and Kantor 1996: pls. 35, 38, 44, 131, 133, 149).
Early Dynastic Period (ca. 2900–2350 BC)
The new institutional forms that emerged during the later part of the fourth millennium BC come into much clearer focus during the Early Dynastic period. Over the course of this lengthy period, continuing urbanization across southern Mesopotamia produced a patchwork of city-states, each dedicated to a particular deity and each headed up by a ruler and a substantial team of officials and administrators. Although there are hints of the existence of a multicity confederacy (Martin 1988: 128; Matthews 1991: 13; Visicato 1995: 144–145), each city-state developed a unique local identity and unique forms of institutional organization that would continue to play a role during succeeding periods.
We are particularly well informed about only a few of these city-states, such as Lagash (ancient Girsu, modern Telloh) and Shuruppak (modern Fara). Both of these city-states have left behind a substantial documentary record that provides a wealth of detail about, for example, administrative structures, labor management, and the organization of agricultural production. Most of the sixteen hundred tablets from Girsu, dating to the Early Dynastic III period, derive from a single administrative archive that documents the activities and holdings of a temple dedicated to the goddess Ba’u (or Baba). This temple was not solely a place of worship; the “household of Ba’u” was a major economic player, with at least forty-five square kilometers of agricultural landholdings and a large dependent labor force supported by rations (especially grain) and land allotments (Powell 1990: 8–10). This archive, therefore, provides a detailed look at one segment within the institutional system of the city-state of Lagash. The texts from Shuruppak, dating to the Early Dynastic Ilia period, cover a much broader cross section of the institutional system and offer a glimpse into the structure of this system (Visicato 1995, 2001). Like other contemporary city-states and like the larger-scale states that would follow in subsequent centuries, the administrative apparatus was conceived as a hierarchy of nested “households” (é in Sumerian). Institutional affiliation was likened to membership in a household, and the institutional economy was structured as a collection of self-sufficient but interconnected super-households (not households in a strict sense, defined by kinship bonds or shared residence, but households in a metaphorical sense) (see, e.g., Gelb 1979; Schloen 2001; Garfinkle 2008; Ur 2014).
As in the preceding period, grain provided much of the glue that held these city-state systems together. It is hardly surprising, then, that documents tracking the flow of grain into and out of storage facilities also appear in significant quantities during the Early Dynastic period. The Ba’u temple archive from Girsu references at least thirty storehouses, approximately half devoted solely to grain and the other half functioning as multipurpose warehouses. The two mentioned most often, the é-kilam and the é-kisilla, were used, for example, to store grain, onions, fish, and agricultural tools (Deimel 1931: 84–85; Schneider 1920: 74). Granaries were staffed by a range of personnel, including the ka-guru7 or “granary supervisor,” who appears often in the texts as the official responsible for receiving and dispensing grain (Deimel 1931: 84–85). As architectural spaces, these institutional storage facilities must have been substantial; one Girsu text, for example, documents the delivery of more than 345 tons of barley, the yield from nine agricultural fields, into a storehouse (Bauer 1998: 536).
Thirty-two enormous, cylindrical, subterranean silos were identified during the excavations at Fara (Shuruppak). These silos were scattered across the site, but there was a particular concentration in the northern portion of the mound (Figure 4.4; see below for further discussion; Martin 1988: 47, 110–112, figs. 12, 14, 20, 33, pls. XII-XIV). At Girsu, the so-called Urnanše Building or “Maison des fruits” has also been interpreted as a storehouse; this rectangular construction (10.5 by 7.3 meters) included two large, bitumen-lined rooms that were surrounded by a corridor and that appear to have been accessed from above (Schneider 1920: 74; Huh 2008: 85–91). The Early Dynastic period has also produced some of the first evidence for palaces. These massive constructions, excavated, for example, at Eridu (Safar et al. 1981), Kish (Moorey 1976), and Uruk (the Stampflehmgebäude; Eichmann 2007), typically included areas devoted to storage or, at least, rooms whose shape and location suggest a storage function. Likewise, a row of long, thin rooms within the temple of Nanna at Ur probably functioned as a storage magazine (Dolce 1989: 27).
Some proportion of the grain that was produced on institutional land during the Early Dynastic period would have made its way, physically, into the palaces and temples, but we should also be envisioning a much more extensive network of storage depots within the city and in the countryside, perhaps analogous to the roughly contemporary structures excavated in northern Mesopotamia at sites such as Tell Beydar (Sténuit 2003), Telul eth-Thalathat (Fukai, Horiuchi, and Matsutani 1974), Tell Karrana (Wilhelm and Zaccagnini 1993), Tell al-Raqa’i (Schwartz 1994; Fortin and Schwartz 2003), Tell ‘Atij (Fortin 1997; Fortin and Schwartz 2003), Tell Ziyadeh (Hole 1991, 1999), Tell Hajji Ibrahim (Danti 1997), and Kazane Höyük (Creekmore 2008).
Akkadian Period (ca. 2350–2200 BC)
The end of the Early Dynastic period was marked by an escalation in intercity strife and by a number of attempts at conquest on a regional scale. The first successful effort to establish a unified, pan-Mesopotamian state was carried out by Sargon of Akkad around 2340 BC. The Akkadian dynasty founded by Sargon exercised hegemony—although by no means unquestioned hegemony—over southern Mesopotamia until approximately 2200 BC. The Akkadian kings also made significant efforts to expand outward into surrounding regions, but the nature of the Akkadian presence in these areas remains a subject of significant dispute.
The administration of this new, unified polity raised a host of logistical challenges that were met with a mixture of centralization, standardization, and a retooling of the redistributive systems and power structures already in place. The Akkadian kings, for example, introduced a new calendar and a standardized system of weights and measures. They also installed “sons of Akkad” as governors (ensi) in the previously independent city-states. The financing of the expanded state apparatus required a substantial broadening of the available resource base, and the Akkadian kings appear to have accomplished this by embarking on a major program of land acquisition—building up significant new holdings of agricultural land through a combination of conquest, confiscation, and purchase. Some of this land was held directly by the central government, and some was considered the responsibility of the governor. Both of these parties could then distribute parcels to loyal retainers, either as a form of remuneration or as a lease (Foster 1993: 29–31; Foster 1982a: 109–12).
As harvested grain made its way from the agricultural fields toward state storehouses, it passed through several administrative checkpoints. The first was the threshing floor, a primary collection point where yields could be assessed, debts settled, and a first division of the harvest carried out. At Umma, for example, lessees were responsible for transporting the harvested grain to the threshing floor, where an official known as the sagapin recorded the volume of grain delivered, the name of the lessee, and often the field from which the grain had come. The proportion owed to the state was then removed and transferred to a storage facility (Foster 1982b: 101–102, 147). The grain was accounted for a second time at a building known as the é-gidri or “Scepter House,” an important administrative office located within the city of Umma, although the grain itself may not have actually entered this building in a physical sense (Foster 1982b: 101–102, 147). As in the Early Dynastic texts from Girsu, deliveries of grain into and out of storage facilities were the responsibility of the ka-guru7 or “granary supervisor” (Foster 1982b: 90, 95).
The grain collected in these institutional storehouses could then be redirected—either unprocessed or after being transformed into flour, bread, beer, and so on—toward a variety of uses (Foster 1982b: 102–16). In the city of Adab, for example, barley from the city storehouse was distributed for rations, for seed, for export via boat, and perhaps for transport to the capital city of Agade as tribute. It was also sent to the governor’s kitchen and brewery (Yang 1989: 256–260).
The best archaeological evidence for storage during the Akkadian period comes from a series of sites in northern Mesopotamia, well beyond the core of the Akkadian state. At Tell Brak, for example, the so-called palace built by the Akkadian king Naram-Sin was almost certainly a fortified storehouse, rather than a palace as such (Figure 4.5). This massive construction, approximately one hundred meters on a side, included at least forty long, narrow, magazine-like rooms arranged around a series of large courtyards (Mallowan 1947: 27–28, pls. LIX-LX; Oates, Oates, and McDonald 2001: 19–21, 383–386; Paulette 2015: 78–82). It seems clear, based on a wide range of archaeological and written evidence from the site, that Tell Brak was functioning as a key node of Akkadian control in the region. Tell Mozan, another major urban center in northern Mesopotamia, has also produced evidence for large-scale storage and a clear connection to the Akkadian state. In this case, the “royal storehouse” was located within a palace occupied by a local ruling family; according to the excavators, the connection to the Akkadian state was probably one of alliance, cemented by the marriage of Naram-Sin’s daughter to the local king, rather than outright domination (Buccellati and Kelly-Buccellati 1995–96, 2002: 13–15).
Ur III Period (ca. 2112–2000 BC)
The collapse of the unified Akkadian state around 2200 BC ushered in another phase of local autonomy, competing power blocs, and political maneuvering, summed up famously in the Sumerian King List with the phrase, “Who was king? Who was not king?” A number of prominent city rulers, such as Gudea of Lagash, struggled to establish primacy, but it was only with the rise of the Third Dynasty of Ur (also known as Ur III) around 2112 BC that the level of comprehensive, region-wide power exercised by the Akkadian kings was reestablished. Although the Ur III dynasty was founded by Ur-nammu, his successor Shulgi appears to have been responsible for the sweeping set of reforms that transformed the Ur III state into the exemplar (or cautionary tale) of highly centralized, top-down management that we know today.
One of the most interesting economic innovations introduced by the Ur III dynasty was the so-called bala, a vast redistributive system that facilitated the movement of goods among the different provinces. Each province was required to contribute a certain quantity of goods, based on the productive capacity and the particular specialization of that province, to a central fund, from which it could then withdraw needed goods. The bala contributions were assembled and redistributed at purpose-built collection centers; the best known of these was Puzrish-Dagan, which specialized in animals and animal products, but a center specializing in agricultural products may have been located at the town of Dusabara (Steinkeller 1991: 22–23). The Ur III state also operated large-scale workshops or factories, often staffed largely by women and dedicated, for example, to textile manufacture (Waetzoldt 1972; Wright 1996) or the grinding of grain (Grégoire 1999). The workers in these factories were supported by rations, as were many other state dependents and employees (e.g., Gelb 1965).
The massive holdings of agricultural land administered by the Ur III state were, in many cases, cultivated directly by dependents workers, overseen by an engar or “farmer,” but parcels of land were also leased out to tenants and distributed to state dependents as a form of remuneration (Ellis 1976: 81–82). In many ways, the Ur III administrative apparatus appears to have been designed to squeeze out every last bit of productive capacity from the realm and to funnel surpluses into state coffers, a classic example of tightly controlled, heavily centralized, economic maximization (e.g., Adams 1978). Much of the grain produced on institutional land, therefore, made its way into urban storehouses; a possible example, the so-called é-nun-mah, was excavated by Sir Leonard Woolley at Ur in the 1920s and 1930s (Figure 4.6; Woolley 1974: 45–54; Paulette 2015: 157–161).
As part of his detailed study of the landscape in the Umma province, Piotr Steinkeller has been shedding light on another important dimension of the state infrastructure: the network of rural storage facilities where grain was collected immediately following the harvest. Steinkeller has identified references to at least eighty-five hamlets or small villages, many of which appear to have been “highly specialized agricultural outposts,” consisting of little more than a threshing floor (ki-sur12), a grain silo (guru7 or ì-dub), and perhaps a few houses. These “minimal settlements” were spread out across the countryside as nodes of institutional administration, where grain was collected and partially processed before being shipped onward to Umma and other towns. Some of these rural settlements, also outfitted with threshing floors and storage facilities, appear to have functioned primarily as roadhouses for travelers. Some were more substantial settlements that included large-scale storehouses (gá-nun), palaces (é-gal), temples, and a variety of other facilities (Steinkeller 2007: 190–193).
In the Ur III texts, the ka-guru7 or “granary supervisor” often appears as a high-level government official. A ka-guru7 named Arad, for example, was “the chief official in charge of grain processing, storage, and distribution at Umma” and may have been the brother of the governor of the province (Steinkeller 2004: 68). Arad appears in numerous documents as the official responsible for distributing grain and grain products from a series of storehouses in the city of Umma and in the surrounding countryside. This does not mean, however, that he was physically present at those storehouses; to the contrary, the grain transfers in question were almost certainly conducted by others, although with his stamp of approval (Steinkeller 2004: 68–72).
A number of recently published texts from the town of Garshana (near Umma) also provide interesting details about Ur III grain storage practices. Guards, for example, were stationed daily at a storage facility (ganun), their task described as “sitting in the ganun storage” (Heimpel 2009: 328). Some texts from Girsu similarly describe guard duty at a storage facility as “sitting by” the ganun (Mander 1994: 99, cited in Heimpel 2009: 328). Many of the texts from Garshana also document the activities of porters engaged in transporting grain from a variety of locales to a storehouse (ganun) and granary (gur7) at Garshana, often by loading the grain into sacks and shipping it by boat (Heimpel 2009: 308–316).
State Making and State Space
The basic narrative of state formation and succession in Mesopotamia, as rehearsed in the preceding section, is well known and, at least on the surface, relatively straightforward. It is important to point out, though, that opinions differ, sometimes markedly, as to exactly what these states were, how they were constructed, and how pervasive their systems of economic management and control were.
Some historians and archaeologists envision the states of early Mesopotamia as more or less unified systems: comprehensive, highly integrated, neatly organized structures of dependency and control (e.g., Deimel 1931; Falkenstein 1974; Steinkeller 1999). This vision of wholesale subordination to the will of god and/or king is certainly an image that the palace and temple institutions themselves strove to project, but how seriously should we take their propaganda? Undoubtedly, the individuals who were responsible for forging the institutional narrative—we seldom know exactly who was responsible—were tapping into and expanding on an existing conceptual repertoire, a shared cultural logic or worldview that already incorporated a specific understanding of authority, interdependency, duty, and so on (see, e.g., Schloen 2001). The propaganda made sense. But this does not mean that it was an accurate description of existing power relations. As Seth Richardson has recently argued, these states presumed or claimed a degree of sovereignty that they were not necessarily able to put into practice. They were projects, not accomplished facts, and they were typically unfinished (Richardson 2012: 4). The visions of order and authority that gave these projects their force did underwrite significant expansions in institutional control, but we should be careful not to assume that the rhetoric of state making—the “state idea” (Abrams 1988: 75)—actually matched the reality.
Indeed, it has become increasingly clear that the sociopolitical landscape in third millennium Mesopotamia was more heterogeneous and more heterarchical than once assumed (Adams 1984: 89–97; 2004: 46–48; Yoffee 1995: 299–302; Stein 2001: 214–221). The palaces and temples—that is, the primary “state” institutions—had certainly established an imposing presence within the urban and rural landscape, and large numbers of people were linked into the institutional system as dependents of one kind or another. The palace and temple institutions did not, however, always act in concert with one another, and they did not exercise an absolute monopoly on governance and patronage. They acted alongside and sometimes in competition with a series of community organizations, corporate groups, and local governing bodies (Yoffee 2005: 109–112). At the same time, institutional affiliations were crosscut by linguistic, ethnic, kin-based, and occupational allegiances, and evidence for a significant noninstitutional or extra-institutional economy continues to mount (e.g., Diakonoff 1982; Gelb 1971, 1979; van Driel 2000, 2005; Robertson 2005).
The emerging picture is one of distributed authority, discontinuous power, incomplete control, economic diversity—a far cry from the all-powerful, all-inclusive “temple-states” (Deimel 1931) once imagined. It would certainly be unwise to overestimate the degree of autonomy and choice that people were able to exercise, denying the very real effects of institutional expansion and intervention, but it does seem increasingly likely that some portion—possibly a large portion—of the population managed to remain beyond the grasp of institutional control. This complicates our understanding of state formation in Mesopotamia.
In a series of books, especially Seeing Like a State (1998) and The Art of Not Being Governed (2009), James C. Scott has developed a rich and insightful commentary on what he calls “state spaces,” that is, geographical zones that are particularly amenable to centralized governance, surveillance, and appropriation (Scott 1998: 183–91; 2009: 13, 40–63). Scott focuses much of his attention on southeast Asia, but his discussion of the state-making potential of irrigated river valleys could easily be transplanted to southern Mesopotamia. As we saw above, the alluvial lowlands of southern Mesopotamia have played host to a whole series of state-making projects, some more successful than others but all built on a backbone of large-scale, intensive, irrigated agriculture. In the framework laid out by Scott, this region would appear to be the very definition of state space: a zone of concentrated resources and densely packed population, ripe for the picking by would-be state makers. At a certain level of abstraction, this characterization is probably apt, but I would like to argue that early Mesopotamian cities and the surrounding countryside were not actually (or not entirely) state spaces. Yes, the palace and temple institutions were able at various points to establish a firm presence within both the urban and the rural landscape, but their ability to manage, mold, and control these spaces was only partial.
The institutions were particularly interested in grain and grain products, as witnessed by the mountain of “paperwork” generated in the effort to track the movement of grain across the landscape, especially as it moved into and out of various storage facilities. We still, however, need a better understanding of exactly how grain storage fit into specific state-making projects and how it impacted the lives of the people involved. One first step is developing a more accurate assessment of the magnitude of the centralized storage economy, of who was and who was not contributing to and withdrawing grain from institutional granaries. This is a not a simple task, but it does offer a potential path toward gaining a better grasp on the scope of redistribution and institutional dependency in Mesopotamia. Here, I would like to introduce a brief case study to demonstrate the kinds of quantification that are possible.
Quantifying Dependency
In Mesopotamia, state making typically required the creation of a dependent labor force, that is, people who relied on the state institutions to provide them with the basic necessities of life. Dependency took many forms. Some people (or households) found themselves attached to a wealthier patron household; some to the palace; some to one of the temples that dotted the urban landscape. Some were remunerated with wages or rations; some with land grants (e.g., Van De Mieroop 1997: 142–158, 176–189). Dependency was typically understood via the metaphor of “household” membership. That is, dependent individuals and households were considered to be part of the household of the patron—regardless of their actual place of residence—and this basic household structure was replicated at higher and higher levels of the social ladder, resulting in complicated, multi-tier structures of interlocking, nested households (Gelb 1979; Schloen 2001; Ur 2014).
This complexity makes quantification difficult. Any attempt to measure or model dependency in Mesopotamia is bound to be an oversimplification, but it is still worth making the effort. I suggest, in particular, that we can learn something important about the logic, the logistics, and the limits of state making if we focus on quantifying the storage economy. Many people relied on regular allotments of grain and other goods from institutional storage facilities. The question is how many people.
Excavations at the site of Fara (ancient Shuruppak) have provided a particularly interesting mix of archaeological and written evidence for grain storage and redistribution (Paulette 2015: 127–137). I cannot claim that this site is typical, but it does provide a fascinating glimpse into the physical infrastructure and the magnitude of the institutional storage economy during the Early Dynastic IIIa period (mid-third millennium BC).
Fara is located in southern Iraq, midway between Baghdad and the head of the Gulf. The site covers a total area of approximately 220 hectares and rises to a maximum height of 10 meters above plain level (Martin 1988: 12–14). During a single excavation season in 1902–3, a team from the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft (DOG) identified and mapped thirty massive subterranean silos at Fara. They excavated the contents of nine of these structures (Andrae 1903: 8–9; Heinrich 1931: 8–9; Martin 1988: 110–12). In 1931 a team from the University of Pennsylvania then excavated two more silos (Pit I and Pit II), neither of which had appeared on the earlier DOG map (Figure 4.7; Martin 1988: 42–47).
The silos were typically round or elliptical in plan and measured an average of four meters in diameter and ten meters in depth (Martin 1988: 47). They were lined with carefully laid baked bricks and a layer of mud plaster. Although some evidence for roofing was identified, the uppermost portions of the silos did not survive intact, and it is unclear exactly how they would have been covered and accessed (Heinrich 1931: 8–9, tables 3–4; Martin 1988: 42–47, 110–112, fig. 20a–b). The fill layers excavated within the silos all appear to have been deposited after the primary use-life of the structures (Martin 1988: 42–46, 110–112); no clearly in situ remains of the goods that they once held have been found (cf. Martin 1988: 47). The original function of these structures, therefore, is not completely certain (see, e.g., Andrae 1903: 8–9), but it is likely that they were indeed silos, used primarily for the storage of grain (Martin 1988: 47). The absence of detailed measurements for most of the silos hinders our ability to derive estimates for their individual and combined storage capacity. Harriet Martin, however, estimates that each silo would have held a maximum of 125 cubic meters of grain (Martin 1988: 47), and Giuseppe Visicato estimates an average capacity of 100 cubic meters (Visicato 1993: 83; Pomponio and Visicato 1994: 205n70).
More than a thousand cuneiform tablets and tablet fragments have been recovered at Fara (Martin 2001: 3). Many of these tablets record the transfer of grain into and out of institutional storage facilities, but the storage facilities themselves are only rarely specified by name. Five storehouses (ganun) have been identified in the documentation: ganun-mah, ganun gúr-gúr, ganun (d)šeš.ki-na, ganun me-pa-è, and ganun en (Visicato 1993: 93; Pomponio and Visicato 1994: 205). It is difficult to say anything definitive about the form or capacity of these storehouses (cf. Martin 1988: 47; Pomponio and Visicato 1994: 205n70), but in a few cases the tablets do reference the quantities of grain either withdrawn from or deposited into them. For example, one brief text (WF 55) records the delivery of barley, to be used as seed grain, from two storehouses: 4,482 liters (eleven gur-mah, two bariga)1 from the ganun-mah and 3,884 liters (nine and a half gur-mah, two bariga) from the ganun gúr-gúr (Pomponio and Visicato 1994: 205). A large number of tablets provide similar details about the size and destination of grain deliveries but, unfortunately, without a reference to the storehouse(s) from which the grain was disbursed. For example, two texts (WF 84 and WF 85) document the allocation of very large quantities of barley—a total of 252,586 liters (634 gur-mah) and 441,278 liters (1,107 ½ gur-mah, 1 bariga)—to a series of officials, who may have then distributed the barley as rations (Pomponio and Visicato 1994: 177–181; Visicato 1995: 144).
I have explored the broader implications of the quantitative data from Fara in some detail elsewhere (Paulette 2015: 131–37, 169–171, 182–185, tables 5.2–5.6). Here I focus on one particular issue: the number of people that could have been supported if the grain stored in the silos was destined for distribution as rations. Visicato (1993: 83–85) has made an interesting argument that ties together the archaeologically recovered silos, a series of grain transfer documents, and Martin’s estimate for the population of the settlement. He first calculates the total storage capacity of the thirty-two silos as approximately eight thousand gur of barley, the equivalent of 3.5 million daily rations or enough barley to feed twenty thousand people for a period of six months (after which time the silos could be refilled with barley from the next harvest). He then calculates the total quantity of barley transacted within the administrative archives from the site (over a six-month period) as approximately seven thousand gur, a figure that corresponds well with the eight thousand gur of silo capacity. He also points out that a population of twenty thousand fits well with the total population estimate of fifteen thousand to thirty thousand suggested by Martin (1988: 127). If I understand Visicato’s argument correctly, the upshot is twofold: (1) the grain stored in the silos would potentially have been enough to feed the entire population of the city for a period of six months and, (2) this supply of grain was fully under the control of the city’s administrative apparatus. The implication is that the entire population of the city was supported by a centrally managed system of staple redistribution.
If correct, this would be a significant finding, but I think that we should be skeptical for at least two reasons. First, it is extremely unlikely that the available silo capacity in the city was so closely matched with the agricultural productivity of the fields that the entire complement of silos would have regularly been filled up to the brim following the harvest and then completely emptied in preparation for the next harvest. The more likely scenario is that the maximum storage capacity was seldom reached, perhaps only in exceptionally productive years (see, e.g., Forbes and Foxhall 1995: 74–75). Second, it is extremely unlikely that the full volume of grain stored in the silos would have been earmarked for immediate distribution as daily rations. Indeed, one of the texts mentioned above (WF 55) documents the withdrawal of seed-grain (i.e., grain that was not being used for rations) from two storehouses. At the same time, I think that we must assume that some quantity of grain was being stored as a buffer against future crisis—probably at least enough to cover an additional six months, if not an additional year or more.
Table 4.1 Chart Showing the Estimated Storage Capacity (in ancient gur or liters) of the Thirty-Two Silos Identified at Fara. See Paulette 2015: Table 5.6
Table 4.1 shows Visicato’s calculations, as well as my own attempt to produce comparable figures. In both cases, I have included estimates for the number of people that could have been fed with rations for a period of six months, one year, or two years, and I have converted these values into percentages of the total population of the settlement.2 These calculations indicate that the grain stored in the silos might have been enough to support the entire population of the settlement for a period of six months or one year; in both cases, it also might not have been enough. If the grain was intended to provide support for two years, the calculations suggest that only half of the population could have been fed and perhaps much less than half. To my mind, the two-year estimate is likely to be closest to the truth. Visicato may be correct in assuming that the silos would have been completely emptied over the course of the six-month period between harvests, but it is much more likely that the goal would have been to keep enough grain on hand for the current year and, as a buffer against crisis, for the following year.
The exercise in quantification does not unambiguously demonstrate the existence of an all-encompassing redistributive system at Fara, but neither does it provide clear evidence against such a system. What it does offer is one more piece in a complicated puzzle. The archaeological and written evidence from Fara seems to indicate a complex mixture of centralizing and decentralizing forces. Visicato, for instance, has emphasized the hierarchical, pyramid-like structure of the administrative system and, by extension, the organization of the city as a whole (Visicato 2001; 1995: 138, 147–148). Matthews (1991: 12–13), on the other hand, envisions a less integrated structure, with “discrete or semi-discrete households” as “the fundamental unit of society and administration at ED III Fara” There is also clear evidence that the city was part of a multicity coalition. It is even possible that the grain stored in many of the silos was destined for the provisioning of coalition troops, rather than city residents (Martin 1988: 128; Visicato 1995: 144–145).
Discussion
To close, I would like to emphasize a few key points. First, the political history of Mesopotamia during the fourth and third millennia BC is not a history of the state; it is a history of states (plural) and state making. Although I recognize that the term state can be problematic for a number of reasons (e.g., Smith 2003: 78–111), I have used the term to highlight the fact that the idea of the state—the state as a fully integrated totality from which there is no possibility of escape—is not just an artifact of recent history. This idea was already being developed and deployed in early Mesopotamia, and it must be taken into account, even if the ultimate goal is to tear down the façade and produce a more complicated account of institutional construction and political practice. One of the ways to begin tearing down this façade is to focus on the practicalities of state making, that is, on the symbolic production of the state idea and the material production of an institutional apparatus. I have focused on this institutional apparatus and, in particular, on the role of grain and grain storage.
In all of the diverse attempts at state making outlined above, grain occupied a key strategic position, most crucially as a means of gaining access to and control over labor. These state-making projects were not (or were not solely) abstract experiments in social and political philosophy, efforts to redefine and reshuffle existing notions of authority, rule, duty, dependency, and so forth. They were power grabs that required control over the production and distribution of basic foodstuffs. State making was conducted, to a large extent, in the realm of gastro-politics (Appadurai 1981: 495), and in Mesopotamia gastro-politics was all about grain—the cultivation, stockpiling, and distribution of grain.
In this chapter, I have suggested that a quantitative examination of grain storage practices offers one means of beginning to disentangle the rhetoric of state making from the material practicalities of institutional construction and maintenance. As demonstrated in the brief case study, this approach may not always result in definitive conclusions, but it does help us to think in more concrete terms about the scope and the limits of institutional power in Mesopotamia.
Notes
1. It is important to point out that there is disagreement about how the Early Dyanstic units of measurement should be converted to liters. In this paragraph, I have followed Visicato (1993: 83) and Ellison (1981: 38) in assuming that one sìla equals 0.83 liters, but see Pomponio and Visicato (1994: 32n4) for a discussion of the wide range of possibilities. I have also relied on the following equivalencies: 1 gur-mah = 480 sìla and 1 bariga = 60 sìla. The four conversions were conducted as follows: (1) 11 gur-mah 2 bariga = 5,400 sìla = 4,482 liters; (2) 9 ½ gur-mah 2 bariga = 4,680 sìla = 3,884.4 liters; (3) 634 gur-mah = 304,320 sìla = 252,585.6 liters; (4) 1,107 ½ gur-mah 1 bariga = 531,660 sìla = 441,277.8 liters.
2. Visicato himself only calculated the number of people that could be fed for a six-month period (i.e., not one year or two years), and he did not explicitly discuss the percentage of the population that could have been fed. Where I have expanded on his calculations, the values in the table are shown in italics, rather than normal type.
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