Carrying Bricks and Bundling Reed in Theory and Practice

Abstract

In Ancient Mesopotamia management of labor was one of the major domains in which quantification and computation were put into play: field labor—hoeing, plowing, harrowing, weeding, harvesting, threshing; transport—carrying, towing boats; irrigation—digging, dredging, installing fascines; manufacture; construction. For every task there was a norm governing how much a male or female laborer had to accomplish to earn the wage of one day’s labor. Labor norms allowed easy control of performance and cost estimates. This chapter deals with two facets of the quantification of labor: the transportation of bricks and work related to bundled material. It draws mainly on administrative records from Garshana dated to the Ur III period, and mathematical texts dated to the Old Babylonian (OB) period.