by Eckart Frahm
Loans
Loan contracts between Assyrians and Anatolians, or within the Assyrian community, were frequent. Some debt‐notes resulted from the sale on credit of merchandise and had only a default interest (Veenhof 1999a; Michel 2013b). Some employees were paid with interest‐free working capital (be’ulātum) instead of a salary.
Non‐commercial loans with interest between individuals consisted of small quantities of silver or cereals. Silver could be borrowed with interest from the house of a tamkārum. For the Assyrians, the interest fixed by the kārum office amounted to 30 percent per year; it was even higher for the Anatolians. The creditor could ask for guaranties: a guarantor, the joint responsibility of debtors, or a surety (such as members of the family, the house, or other goods). If a guarantor had to borrow silver in order to pay the loan, the creditor could impose an interest on top of the established interest of the debtor. Loan contracts were for short periods of time, generally shorter than a year.
When a debt was repaid, the creditor gave the loan tablet back to the debtor and the contract was cancelled by breaking the envelope or by giving the debtor a receipt (see Figure 4.3) (Dercksen 1999; Michel 1995, 2003a; Veenhof 2001, 2003b).
Figure 4.3 An Old Assyrian letter comprising a main tablet and a small second one preserved together in their sealed envelope. Kt 93/k 211, Ankara, Anadolu Medeniyetleri Müzesi.
Source: Photo Cécile Michel, reproduced with the permission of the archaeological mission of Kültepe.
Textile production and businesswomen
The long‐distance trade was based in Ashur, where the families of the merchants were settled. Ashur was the transit city for the tin and textile trade, but many households also produced textiles locally. All of the women in the household weaved textiles, but not only to dress their family: most of the textiles they produced were exported to Anatolia (Michel 2006d, forthcoming: chapter 4; Michel and Veenhof 2010; Veenhof 1972). Not always could they satisfy the demand for textiles:
You should not get angry because I did not send you the textiles about which you wrote. As our little girl has grown up, I had to make a pair of heavy textiles for the wagon. Moreover, I made (some) for the staff of the household and for the children; this is why I did not manage to send you textiles.
(Michel 2001: no. 307; forthcoming: no. 166)
The total production by the women who belonged to the same household would amount to some twenty‐five textiles a year: this was not enough for the thousands of textiles exported each year. Thus, the Assyrians also bought textiles from Babylonians. There is no reference to institutional textile production in Ashur.
Women bought the wool nearby, which came from sheep that grazed in Suḫum and were brought to Ashur to be plucked. Šurbu’ītum wool, which came from animals that were bred in the Ḥamrin Mountains, was the best for weaving the kutānum textiles that were exported to the west (Dercksen 2004a: 16, n. 32; Michel 2014c; Michel and Veenhof 2010: 221). But more so than the quality of the wool, it was the technical skill of the Assyrian women that mattered. They were even able to copy various techniques used in other cities, and their products were valued by the men of the family, who frequented the Anatolian markets and knew very well the nature of the demand:
As for the thin textile you sent me, you must make such ones and send (them) to me with Aššur‐idi, and I will send you ½ mina of silver (apiece). One must strike the one side of the textile, and not pluck it, its wrap should be close. Add, per piece, one pound of wool more than you used for the previous textile you sent me, but they must remain thin! Let them strike its second side only slightly. If it proves still to be hairy let one pluck it like a kutānum. As for the Abarnian textile you sent me, such a one you must not send me again. If you make (one), make (it) like the one I dressed myself in there. If you do not manage (to make) thin textiles, I hear that there are plenty for sale over there, buy (them) and send them to me. A finished textile that you make must be nine cubits long and eight cubits wide (4.5 × 4 meters)
(Michel 2001: n°318, forthcoming: no. 162; Michel and Veenhof 2010: 250–2; Wisti Lassen 2010: 274–6).
Once the textiles were finished and went through the cleaner, the women organized the textiles’ transport to Anatolia, entrusting them to male members of their family who traveled regularly between Ashur and Kaniš or paying transporters who could add a few units to their loads. In exchange for the sale of their textiles, the women received gold and silver, sometimes in the form of jewelry, which they sold on behalf of their households or invested in commercial transactions and in loans with interest. The more textiles they sent, and the better their quality, the higher the price they received. The regular production of textiles ensured the women an income. Besides the management of their personal funds, women acted as representatives for their husbands and brothers. They acted as true businesswomen (Michel 2006d; forthcoming: chapter 4).
Craftsmen and other professionals
Aside from information on the women weaving at home, the Old Assyrian documents include very little data on craftsmen or other professions in Ashur, and occupational designations concerning Kaniš refer predominantly to Anatolians. However, it is possible to give a list of attested occupations, even if we know almost nothing about the social status of the individuals who held them (Michel 2015b).
Besides the many activities linked to the political, legal, and economic administration of the state (kings, eponyms, officials of the City Hall and of the bēt kārim, scribes, stewards, judges, attorneys, messengers, and different functionaries; see Dercksen 2004a), to religion (see below, “Religion”), or to the international trade, both in Ashur and Kaniš (merchants, agents, transporters, donkey drivers, harnessers, guides, escorts, and even smugglers), the texts cite few professions. Several Ashur eponyms are mentioned with their professions: Aššur‐imitti the boatman, Puzur‐Aššur the ghee trader (or: the one who supplies the palace with ghee), and Amaya, the one in charge of the weapons (or: an arms dealer) (Kryszat 2004; Veenhof 2003). Indirect references also appear, such as “the house of the carpenter” (Michel 2001: no. 345). It is likely that other specialized craftsmen, such as bleachers, rope makers, and leather‐workers, were also active in Ashur (Dercksen 2004a: 255–85).
In Kaniš, apart from the numerous functionaries working for the local palace, there were various specialized Anatolian craftsmen: house builders, carpenters, leather‐workers, textile cleaners, potters, gardeners, shepherds, oil traders, salt traders, female millers, and wet‐nurses. In attuš, there is a reference to a female tavern keeper (KBo 9 10:4). But we also find Assyrians who were not merchants. Among these are “interpreters” (targumannum), “metal workers” (nappāhum, Dercksen 1996: 71–6; Sturm 2001), a “tavern keeper” (sābium), a “confectioner” (kakardinnum), a “barber” (gallābum), who was sold as a slave, and a “weaver” (ušparum; Michel 2001: 561–77, 2015b; Veenhof 2008: 118).
Market and shops
Besides the warehouses in Ashur where one could buy tin and textiles, there were “markets” (mahīrum) or stalls and street shops for local products covering basic needs and, perhaps, wool to produce textiles (RIMA 1, 49:62–4). These would not necessarily have left archaeological traces, since they could have been in open‐air places. In Ashur, women had to buy barley to feed their households with the silver they earned from their textile production:
It is the right season; take good care to send me, in exchange for my textiles, silver from what you happen to have at hand, so that I can buy 10 measures of barley.
(Michel 2001: no. 344, forthcoming: no. 128)
The City Hall could sell barley and copper, as well as products that would be subsequently exported to Anatolia. A larger market might have existed near the city gate but it is not mentioned in the texts (Dercksen 2004a: 33–9).
In Kaniš, the “market” (maḫīrum), presumably located on the citadel, was partly covered and controlled by the “chief of the market” (rabi maḫīrim). It included shops or stalls where pe
ople could buy slaves, agricultural products, and animals from the surrounding villages, as well as different varieties of wheat and barley, wood, reeds, and cattle (Dercksen 2008a; Hecker 1997; Michel 2011a; Veenhof 2003c). The Assyrians who worked full time trading metals and textiles were totally dependent on these markets for products for their daily lives. Some of them, however, had Anatolian wives and were more fortunate since these women were also involved in agricultural tasks such as fieldwork and the breeding of oxen and pigs (Michel 2008c).
Metrology and means of payment
In their many transactions, the Assyrians used a decimal system to count discrete objects, for example, textiles and bread. Products that were usually measured in units, such as cereals, were sold in “sacks” (naruqqum, ca. 120 l.) and “jars” (karpatum, ca. 30 l.) of a standard capacity. Beer was measured in “jugs” (kirrum). Among the different metrological systems used by the merchants, the weight system dominated because of the nature of the traded goods, which were predominantly metals (Michel 2006a). Tin, gold, silver, and iron were measured according to the classical sexagesimal weight system in shekels, minas, and talents. In Anatolia, copper was weighed in hundreds of minas, in a system that ignored the talent, perhaps influenced by the local decimal system.
A tablet dated to the level Ib period gives a metrological correlation, indicating that 840 Anatolian minas equaled 760 Assyrian minas, which means that the Assyrian mina was 10 percent heavier than the Anatolian one (Kt u/k 3; Dercksen 1996: 87; Michel, in press).
The length system was occasionally used when measuring textiles in cubits (ammatum, ca. ½ meter), and the šubtum (perhaps equivalent to 36 m2) served to give the surface area of a building (Veenhof 2011b).
In Ashur, Assyrians probably paid gold for the tin they bought from the Elamites but paid silver to the Babylonians for the textiles they imported. They also used silver to buy houses, slaves, and large amounts of cereals, or to pay taxes to City Hall; loans were usually made in silver. It was exchanged in the form of rings or refined ingots broken in small pieces (ṣarrupum, Veenhof 2014b).
On the way to Anatolia, tin was used for current expenses, such as to pay the inns where caravans stopped and cover the toll when crossing borders. Tin circulated in the form of rings and small ingots (Dercksen 2005a; Veenhof 1972: 32–5). Silver and copper items were also used as small change.
In Anatolia, Assyrians were involved in the local trade in copper, a metal that, in the form of ingots, small pieces, or even old sickles, served to buy cheap goods such as food products (Dercksen 1996; Lehner 2014).
Meals
Letters written by women from Ashur mention the need to buy barley and to prepare beer bread for their husbands, but we know much more about the diet of Assyrians who were settled in Kaniš. Bread and beer represented the main food and drink products; water consumption was taken for granted and is thus never mentioned.
Cereals and products derived from them such as flour, porridge, and bread were the staple foods. Grains of wheat, barley, and spelt were crushed and ground to make flour, which was used to make two kinds of bread: bread made only with flour and water or sourdough bread. Sesame oil and animal fat, such as lard, were used for cooking but also for lighting or for washing. The diet also included vegetables, mainly leeks and onions, and fruits (nuts, grapes, and pomegranates). Herbs and spices, such as cumin, coriander, or mustard, were added to dishes, and people in Kaniš used salt from the Tuz Gölü both as a condiment and as a conservative. Honey, measured in jars, served as a preservative or as a sweetener (Dercksen 2008a, 2008b; Fairbairn 2014; Michel 1997a).
Assyrians also ate meat (sheep, oxen, and pork) as well as fish and shrimp. The animals were often killed at home, or cuts of meat were bought and grilled. For their many travels, merchants could buy meat dishes, such as stew (Atici 2014; Dercksen 2008a; Lion, Michel, and Noël 2000; Michel 1997a, 2006c, 2014d).
Assyrians primarily drank beer, but they also appreciated wine, which was made from Cappadocian grapes. Brewing beer was a typically domestic activity: prepared at home by the women, it was made through the maceration and fermentation of barley, with malt and beer bread as the main constituents. In Ashur, malt was obtained from germinated barley grain while, in Anatolia, it was prepared with wheat grain. The beer bread was made of crushed barley. Each house had a stock of malt and beer bread ready to use for making beer. Beer and wine were served during private and public feasts, but some merchants had beer daily and would get drunk (Michel 2009a).
Meals were prepared by the women, who cooked in the metal vessels that they received as part of their dowry. In a letter sent to his fiancée, an Assyrian merchant mentions the duties of the wife, namely, serving her husband and cooking for him: “Please, the day you hear (the words of) my tablet there, turn to your father (so that he agrees), set out and come here with my servants. I am alone. There is no one who serves me nor to set the table for me” (Michel 1997a; forthcoming no. 3).
Houses and furniture
In Ashur and Kaniš, the Assyrian merchants bought, built, or extended their houses; sale contracts were used as title deeds (Kienast 1984) and redemption was possible for houses that had been sold as guarantees (Veenhof 1999b). The house was the building that accommodated people for the night but, more importantly, it represented the family that lived there: it was handed down from generation to generation and the family’s ancestors were buried under its floor. Houses were built with mud bricks; reeds and wooden beams were used for ceilings, roofs, stairs, and furniture. Houses had to be maintained regularly; the inhabitants had to change the bricks and beams and renew the plaster of the roof and the walls. A woman awaiting the return of her eldest son to Ashur prepared the work:
Concerning the house in which we live, since the house was in disrepair, I was worried and had mud bricks made during the spring and I have piled them up. As for the wooden beams you wrote about, send me as much silver as you can so that one may buy beams here.
(Michel 1997b, 2001: no. 320, forthcoming: no. 146; Veenhof 2011b)
The house was the domain par excellence of the woman, who wanted to possess a building as large and as nice as possible to show off the social success of her family. One woman, envying her neighbors, wrote to her husband: “Since you left, Šalim‐aḫum built two times a house; when will we be able to do (the same)?” (Michel 2001: no. 306; forthcoming: no. 147). The Old Assyrian commercial quarter in Ashur has not yet been located, thus we do not know if, as in Kaniš, the houses there had an upper story. According to sale contracts, the average merchant’s house had a surface area of a hundred square meters and its price could vary from 5 to 15 minas of silver. Some houses are described as having a “main room” (ekallum; Michel 2001: no. 339, 1997b: 287). Because of the existence of a storage room containing archives and precious goods, it was important to guard the house at night and during the absence of its inhabitants.
In Kaniš, Assyrians lived in the lower town. They bought houses built according to the local style; their average being 70–90 square meters, with some reaching over 150 or even 200 square meters (Özgüç 2003: 77–114). The two‐story houses comprised a kitchen with an oven in its center, storerooms, and a sealed room. Some houses were organized around an open court. Their inhabitants lived and slept upstairs (Figure 4.4). According to their last wills, Assyrian merchants left their houses in Kaniš to their eldest sons or to their Anatolian wives.
Figure 4.4 Private houses in the lower town level II, reconstruction.
Source: Özgüç 2003: 106, no. 60.
Inside houses in Kaniš, various domestic objects were excavated; for example, clay and metal vessels such as bowls, vases, jars, pans, and cauldrons. Weapons and tools were found in the graves under the floor of some houses, including arrowheads, axes, spearheads, knives, pitchforks, shears, needles, nails, sickles, as well as other objects, such as divine statuettes, reels for spinning, gold and lapis lazuli jewelry, seals, and belt loops (Emre 2008; Kulakoğlu and Kangal 2010; Özgüç
2003: 142–281). Some rare texts record house inventories; one refers to the household of a woman that contained, among other things, grooved stands, lamps, bowls, measuring cups, various vessels, spoons, tables, containers, and cauldrons (Kt h/k 87; Dercksen 1996: 77; Michel forthcoming: no. 135).
Religion
Since Old Assyrian texts deal mainly with trade, our knowledge of religion during this period is quite limited. Some texts refer to goods as belonging to temples or gods, e.g. gold and silver given as votive offerings (ikribū; Dercksen 1997), or refer to oaths taken in the name of various deities, who are also invoked as witnesses; they also refer to names of priests participating in the overland trade (Hirsch 1972). Many gods were venerated in Ashur, including Adad, Amurrum, Assur, Aššuritum, Belum, Ilabrat, Išḫara, Ištar the Star, Ištar.ZA.AT, Ninkarrak, Nisaba, Suen, Šamaš, Šarramaten, and Tašmetum (Eidem 2004; Dercksen 2005b; Kryszat 2003, 2006a, 2007b); among these, some also appear as family or personal gods, such as Amurrum, Ilabrat or Ištar.ZA.AT (Kryszat 2006b; Michel 1991: 85–8; Veenhof, 2014a). Most of these divine names also occur as parts of personal names (Veenhof 2008 : 102–5).
