The field was called _eḳlu_ (compare Acel-dama, “the field of blood”), denoted by the Sumerian _A-ŠAG-GA_. The term does not denote open waste land, but a cultivated plot. Indeed, it is probable that its Sumerian name implies “irrigation.” In any case it was fenced, if only by a raised ridge; it was cultivated and watched over; the birds were scared away, robbers and stray animals driven off. So much at least is expressed in as many words in the undertakings of tenants to treat a field properly. The field was also _bîtu_ as land, usually “_bîtu_, so much _eḳlu_.” The garden was reckoned as land, but here a fuller specification was needed. For a plot of land, a garden, _kirû_ was not exact enough. It was usual to designate further of what sort it was, whether vegetable garden, orchard, or palm-grove. The scribe would even add “planted with such and such a crop.” The term might include vineyards. In many cases the actual number of bushes, or fruit-trees, or vine-stocks, would be named. But it was always primarily land, and as such _bîtu_, with the qualifications enumerated. (M462) For land measures there were two systems in use, one purely areal, the other with a reference to the average yield. In the former case the scale of measures was discovered and formulated by Dr. G. Reisner, in the _Sitzungsberichte Berliner Akademie_, 1897, p. 417 f., and is completely known. In this scale _1 GAN = 1,800 SAR_, _1 SAR = 60 GIN_, _1 GIN = 180 ŠE_. We do not know how these words _GAN_, _SAR_, _GIN_, _ŠE_ were read; they may be ideograms or Sumerian words. There was also a very large measure of area, _3,600 GAN_, perhaps called a _karu_. Mr. Thureau-Dangin has further shown that the _SAR_ was the square of the measure _GAR-DU_, which seems at one time to have measured _12 U_. The _U_ is often taken to be a cubit, but seems at this time to have been nine hundred and ninety millimetres, which is sometimes called “a double cubit.” On these suppositions the _SAR_ would be a square, each side measuring about twenty-two yards, about one-tenth of an acre, or four ares on the metrical system. But it is certain that both in early times and during the First Dynasty of Babylon the _GAR_ was only _12 U_, and the _U_, if a cubit, would not be much over eighteen inches. This would make the _SAR_ a square of about eighteen feet on each side. The fact that a _SAR_ was a fairly common size for a house seems rather against the smaller area. What is yet wanted is some cuneiform statement of the size or area of something which can be exactly identified and measured. With further exploration this is almost sure to be found.(469)