Data from residential districts within urban centers in Mesopotamia suggest not only that long and unbroken traditions of domestic life persisted, but also that those traditions were characterized by strong neighborhood development and high levels of social mobility. But cities are not just large residential areas; they are defined both by their concentrated populations and, perhaps most importantly, by their institutions.
So far the only real palaces to have been found by archaeologists were of independent rulers of cities, rather than of provincial governors. Thus buildings like the palace at Mari or the Sin-kashid palace at Uruk would not have been features of most cities; instead more modest administrative structures, like the Palace of the Rulers at Tell Asmar and the many other administrative buildings that have been excavated, would have been more common (Frankfort, Lloyd and Jacobsen 1940). Nevertheless, the rich architectural, artifactual, and epigraphic finds from Mari provide a unique window into the lifestyle and the concerns of Mesopotamian royalty and can serve as a model of Mesopotamian ideas of the ideal palace (Parrot 1958, 1959).
The residential apartments for both the royal family and guests were comparable in organization but somewhat larger in size than the largest known private house. These had bathrooms, complete with tubs, of a kind never found in private residences, as well as elaborate kitchens designed to provide food for a large population. But palaces were much more than just royal residences since large-scale storage and administrative quarters filled much of the area of the building. The heart of the palace lay in the audience hall, the place where the ruler fulfilled his role as the arbiter of justice. The large size of such rooms suggests the modern mudhif, the tribal guest house. Here the sheikh entertains all who come with tea and coffee, listens to their complaints and requests, and makes decisions in a process that clearly has similarities to the behavior of Mesopotamian monarchs. The important point here is that no sheikh makes a decision in private. All decisions are made in public, making acts of revenge or favoritism very difficult. If the similarity in architecture between ancient throne-rooms and the traditional Islamic places of judgment indicate that the process of decision-making was the same, then there too the public nature of royal decisionmaking would have ensured fairness to all.
This interpretation is in keeping with more recent assessments of royal power in Mesopotamia. Our written sources tell us that the king was thought to have been chosen by the gods from among the entire (adult male) citizenry of the city. The results of this process may be seen in the numerous, short-lived royal lineages. Postgate has suggested that the city assembly may have been the means by which the gods indicated their choice (Postgate 1992: 269-70). If so, this would reinforce the analogy drawn here between ancient kings and modern sheikhs since the latter are also chosen from among all male tribal members (Fernea 1970: 105-6). Once elected, a Mesopotamian king’s areas of responsibility were to maintain the peace, stabilize the economy, satisfy the gods, and protect the weak from the strong. Local governors were appointed by the king, but it seems probable that such appointments must have followed a process similar to that used to choose village or neighborhood leaders, which in both ancient Mesopotamian and Ottoman times involved a combination of election from within and appointment from above.
Kings, governors, and other royal servants were by no means the only institutional forces within Mesopotamian cities. Every city had one or two temples dedicated to the city god or gods and numerous other smaller religious establishments. The latter varied in size from tiny shrines tucked away within the residential matrix to large important temples that may have dominated one sector of the city. The rich textual record from the Inanna Temple at Nippur and the temple at Ischali suggests that kinship relations were critical. The important offices in the Inanna Temple were held by members of a single family who also played key roles in the Temple of Enlil, the most important temple at Nippur. Zettler argues that the family was resident within the Inanna Temple and has identified that residential area (Zettler 1992: 82-6). Residences associated with temples are also known from earlier examples, such as the house attached to the Temple Oval at Khafajah and the residential area within the Sara Temple at Tell Agrab. But while the residence in the important Temple Oval was significantly larger than the largest known domestic structure, that in the Sara Temple was quite small, and the residential apartments in the Inanna Temple at Nippur were comparable in size and organization to the average house.
Temples seem to have been the main landowners in ancient Mesopotamian cities, and they managed these lands through a mixture of land grants to office holders and the provision of‘‘rations.’’ The receivers of rations used to be described as a semi-free component of society, but today the term used, g u r u s, is translated simply as ‘‘man,’’ and since the monthly payments of 60 liters or almost two bushels of barley are more than double basic subsistence needs (Clark and Haswell 1967), perhaps the term salary would better accord with their economic position.
Adams pointed out that only communal management of agricultural land is consistent with the needs of the Mesopotamian environment, and data from 1950s Iraq make clear that only large-scale systems were economically viable (Adams 1978; Poyck 1962). Thus the role played by the temples, and to a lesser extent the palaces, in managing agricultural land should be seen not so much as an indication of an exploitative economic system as the most efficient means of promoting economic well-being.
World History
