It must, however, be remembered that the price of grain varied from year to year. In years of scarcity the price rose; when the crops were plentiful it necessarily fell. To a certain extent the annual value was equalized by the large exportation of grain to foreign countries, to which reference is made in many of the contract-tablets; the institution of royal or public store-houses, moreover, called _sutummê_, tended to keep the price of it steady and uniform. Nevertheless, bad seasons sometimes occurred, and there were consequent fluctuations in prices. This was more especially the case as regards the second staple of Babylonian food and standard of value—dates. These seem to have been mostly consumed in Babylonia itself, and, though large quantities of them were accumulated in the royal storehouses, it was upon a smaller scale than in the case of the grain. Hence we need not be surprised if we find that while in the seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar a shekel was paid for 1-1/3 ardebs of dates, or about a halfpenny a quart, in the thirtieth year of the same reign the price had fallen to one-twenty-fifth of a penny per quart. A little later, in the first year of Cambyses, 100 _gur_ of dates was valued at 2½ shekels (7s. 6d.), the _gur_ containing 180 _qas_, which gives 2d. per each _qa_, and in the second year of Cyrus a receipt for the payment of “the workmen of the overseer” states that the following amount of dates had been given from “the royal store-house” for their “food” during the month Tebet: “Fifty _gur_ for the 50 workmen, 10 _gur_ for 10 shield-bearers, 2 _gur_ for the overseer, 1 _gur_ for the chief overseer; in all, 63 _gurs_ of dates.” It was consequently calculated that a workman would consume a _gur_ of dates a month, the month consisting of thirty days.