Ancient Administration

The emergence of complex administrations and the development of associated bookkeeping techniques is characteristic of early Mesopotamia, and administrative texts make up the vast majority of documents from any period of Mesopotamian history. Although the focus of the administrative corpora change over time, as the economic centre of gravity moves between different constituents of society —temples, palaces, and private households—a number of constants can be identified and will be described in the following.

Topics:

• Record Keeping
• Cereal agriculture
• Animal husbandry
• Labor management
• Transportation
• Trade
• Household economies
• legal documents