Agricultural Economy and Taxation in the Sealand I Kingdom

Abstract

Administrative texts from the Sealand I kingdom, a second-millennium polity that emerged in the southern Mesopotamian area lost to Babylonian control during Samsu-iluna's reign, show that a palatial system of agricultural taxation was in place around the palace town that produced this archive. The imposts collected by the palace are known from the preceding Old Babylonian and the following Middle Babylonian periods, with somewhat differing meanings and methods of recording. The present article examines the Sealand I evidence within the second-millennium Babylonian administrative continuum, in particular the collection of the šibšu, the miksu, and the kiṣru.