The margin between the schematic values used in dealings with the temple and the actual yield of fields, flocks, and workshops must have given opportunities for some accumulation of private wealth and hence for barter. Craftsmen could utilize their special skills for private commissions as long as they used materials not supplied by the temple magazines. The shepherd could dispose of any increase in his flock beyond the statutory figure; the fisherman could dispose of the remainder of his catch after delivering to the temple his monthly quota. If, therefore, “the people of the god X”—the temple community—can be said to have lived under a system of theocratic socialism, we must add that this planned economy formed a hard core which was surrounded by an ample fringe of private enterprise that remained free.[111] That the accumulation of private wealth was accepted by the community as a matter of course is shown by the rule that a proportion of the rent of _uru-lal_ land had to be paid in silver and not in produce. Moreover, the variety of imported articles testifies to the scope left to barter. It is true that the import and export trade was again organized at the centre. Merchants travelled abroad to obtain stones, gold, silver, copper, lead, wood, and aromatics for the temple. In exchange they could offer grain, dates, onions, and similar produce. But their best opportunities were offered by the produce, not of the rich Mesopotamian soil, but of the skill of the people. Manufactured goods sent abroad included, above all (and at all times), textiles—woollen clothing, hangings, and carpets—and also, to judge by the wide distribution of Sumerian types of tools, weapons, and jewellery, metal objects fashioned in the Plain from imported materials. The merchant in those early days was concerned exclusively with export and import. He did not conduct trade among members of his own community; he exchanged locally finished goods for products of other cities in the Plain or of foreign countries like Elam. It is significant that in return for his effort he received an allotment of land—certain proof that he was in the service of the community. Moreover, he had the use of a team of donkeys belonging to the temple, no doubt in view of his travels (Fig. 20). It seems likely enough that the merchants found opportunities for private trade on the side, and it remains uncertain to what extent they supplied directly the imported articles found in houses. In excavations, for instance, handmills consisting of flat stones with roundish grinders were found in every house. Yet the hard volcanic stones used for them must all have been imported. In the private tombs of the end of the Protoliterate period lead tumblers and stone vases are common. At Khafajah copper vessels, and stands for stone food dishes, or drinking cups, or lamps, are found in graves of the Second Early Dynastic period. The somewhat