(M493) Besides the personal obligation to contribute “work,” _dullu_, a liability for contributions in kind, _ilku_, dues from the land, existed. We are in the dark as yet as to the exact form these took. In the Code, the _ilku_, or duty from an estate held as the benefice of an office, was the fulfilment of the functions of the office.(530) The word does not seem to denote contributions. But the word literally is what “comes” of any holding, income, or what is “taken” from it. In a charter of Melišhiḫu,(531) we have a long list of powers which could be exercised by the king’s officials over land. They are levies or forced contributions of wood, crops, straw, corn, wagons, harness, asses or men, rights to abstract water from canals, to drink from the water, to pasture herbage, or set on the royal flocks or herds, to pasture sheep, to construct roads or bridges. These are referred to as either a _dullu_ or _ilku_. The governor is named as likely to demand right of pasture for his flocks and herds or work for roads and bridges. But we are left without information as to the proportion these levies bore to the property. All we can conclude is that the king had a right to impress such things or such labor. Few, if any, other documents are so full and explicit as to the dues exacted from the land, but all these dues are mentioned again, one or two together, in almost all the charters. (M494) This is one of the most important dues from land. It was paid to the temple. Some are inclined to see it in the _niširtu_, from which many charters exempt land; but others consider this merely a word for “diminution,” or levy in general. There is no means of deciding yet as to the time at which the tithe first became a fixed institution. (M495) There seems to be no trace in Assyrian times of any payment of a tithe. The tithe _rab ešrite_, which has been rendered “tithe collector,” is more likely to be a commander of ten, a decurion.(532) (M496) The evidence for the existence of tithe in the later Babylonian period is very full. All seem to have paid it, from the king downward. Nabonidus paid, on his accession, to the temple at Sippara, five minas of gold. It was a very large sum, but may have been a sort of succession duty rather than an income-tax.(533) It is curious that we also find Belshazzar named as paying tithe, due from his sister, and that when the Persian army was already in possession of Sippara.(534) This shows that the Persians were friendly invaders and respected the rights of private property and of the temples. Belshazzar also paid tithe, through his major-domo, to Bêl, Nabû, Nêrgal, and Bêlit of Erech.(535)