Babylonians and Assyrians : $b Life and customsSayce, A. H. (Archibald Henry)
History
Babylonians and Assyrians : $b Life and customs
Sayce, A. H. (Archibald Henry)
Assyria -- Social life and customs; Babylonia -- Social life and customs
There are numerous materials for ascertaining the average prices of
commodities in the later days of Babylonian history. We have already seen
what prices were given for sheep and wool, as well as the cost of some of
the articles of household use. In the thirty-eighth year of Nebuchadnezzar
100 _gur_ of wheat were valued at only 1 maneh—that is to say, the _qa_ of
wheat was worth only the hundredth part of a shilling—while at the same
time the price of dates was exactly one-half that amount. On the other
hand, in the fourth year of Cambyses 72 _qas_ of sesame were sold at
Sippara for 6½ shekels, or 19s. 6d. This would make the cereal worth
approximately 1½d. a quart, the same price as that at which it was sold in
the twelfth year of Nabonidos. In the second year of Nergal-sharezer
twenty-one strings of onions fetched as much as 10 shekels, and a year
later 96 shekels were given for onion bulbs for planting. Sheep in the
reign of Cambyses fetched 7 and 7¼ shekels each, while 10 shekels were
given for an ox, and 22½ shekels for a steer two years old. In the
twenty-fourth year of Nebuchadnezzar 13 shekels had been paid for a
full-grown ox, and as much as 67 shekels in the fourth year of Nabonidos,
while in the first year of Evil-Merodach a cow was sold for 15 shekels.
The ass was in more request, especially if it was of “Western” breed. In
the reign of Merodach-nadin-akhi, it will be remembered, as much as 130
shekels had been paid for one of these, as compared with 30 shekels given
for an ox, and though at a subsequent period the prices were lower, the
animal was still valued highly. In the year of the death of Cyrus a
Babylonian gentleman bought “a mouse-colored ass, eight years old, without
blemish,” for 50 shekels (£7 10s.), and shortly afterward another was
purchased for 32 shekels. At the same time, however, an ass of inferior
quality went for only 13 shekels. When we consider that only three years
later a shekel was considered sufficient wages for a butcher for a month’s
work, we can better estimate what these prices signify. Nevertheless, the
value of the ass seems to have been steadily going down in Babylonia; at
all events, in the fourth year of Nabonidos, 1 maneh, or 60 shekels, was
demanded for one, and the animal does not seem to have been in any way
superior to another which was sold for 50 shekels a few years afterward.
Clothes and woven stuffs were naturally of all prices. In the time of
Nebuchadnezzar a cloak or overcoat used by the mountaineers cost only 4½
shekels, though under Cambyses we hear of 58 shekels being charged for
eight of the same articles of dress, which were supplied to the “bowmen”
of the army. Three years earlier 7½ shekels had been paid for two of these
cloaks. About the same time ten sleeved gowns cost 35 shekels.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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