A patrimonial state , Louvre Museum. The Ur III state followed a
patrimonial system. The state was organized into a hierarchical pyramid of households with the royal household at the top. As described by Steinkeller it was a network of households linked together by mutual rights and obligations. All resources of the state were exclusively owned by the king and his extended family. All lower households were considered dependents of higher households and, ultimately, of the king. Inferior households contributed corvee labour to the royal household and received economic support, land, and protection in return. As explained by J.-P. Grégoire, the king of Ur "manages the empire as his personal household. Power and authority are highly personalized, so that the public sphere is difficult to separate from the private sphere. The state is identified with the palace, the palace administration is confused with the government. The sovereign's family plays a prominent role in public life and in state affairs." Households (
e "house" in Sumerian; similar to Ancient Greek
oikos) are very diverse: from the basic (nuclear) family unit of commoners, to the estates of wealthy members of the local elite, to the larger domains of the gods (temples), members of the royal family, and the king (the crown). The management of large institutions relies on the household unit, and this at all levels of the economy, for example with the family of Ur-Meme in the management of the temple of
Inanna in
Nippur and also the government of the province, or among the foresters of
Umma, etc., where people work as a family and succeed each other from father to son. Positions in the administration or institutional fields would then be “patrimonialized” by certain families if they held them for a long period. The documentation suggests that most land belonged to temples and royalty, but it is possible that significant parts of the provinces were in the hands of less important, non-institutional households. The connections between all these households and the unifying role of the king's household make it difficult to distinguish between the "public" and "private" interests and activities of individuals. They could combine services for a temple, for the king, and also manage personal affairs.
The king and his entourage : on the right, the title "King of Ur;" on the left, the title "King of Sumer and Akkad."
Louvre Museum. The dynasty of Ur was a hereditary monarchy that followed the Mesopotamian model. The king (in Sumerian
lugal "great/big man") is the head of the administration and the army, he appoints high officials and dispenses justice. According to the official ideology of power, he owed his power to divine support, primarily that of the great god
Enlil residing in
Nippur. Ur-Namma called himself simply "king of Ur" at the beginning of his reign, before taking the title of "king of Sumer and Akkad" once he had extended his domination to all of Lower Mesopotamia. His son Shulgi followed the example of
Naram-Sin of Akkad by adding the title of "King of the four corners (of the world)" (that is, of the whole known world). Hymns to his glory were written, highlighting his qualities and making him an ideal sovereign. He attained a rank that raised him above men to the status of divinity: the
determinative of divinity was placed before his name, he received a cult and temples were dedicated to him. His successors followed his example. The kings of Ur had several palaces (in Sumerian
e-gal "great/big house") in his kingdom, which did not include a "capital" as such. They had three main centers of power, in three venerable Sumerian cities:
Ur, the seat of the dynasty;
Nippur, the principal holy city of Lower Mesopotamia; and
Uruk, perhaps the original city of the dynasty, which was the least important of the three centers. Shulgi and his successors seem to have resided primarily in the province of Nippur (including in the royal palaces of
Tummal and
Puzrish-Dagan); they traveled regularly to the other two cities, at least to perform major religious celebrations. Sources, such as a hymn to Shulgi, indicate that the kings of this dynasty were crowned in these three major cities. On this occasion, they received the symbols of royalty (a crown, a scepter, a throne). The kings moved frequently, meaning they did not reside in the same place all year round. They traveled in the company of a group of people who could be referred to as their "court," which, in the narrow sense, included members of their family, courtiers, and their household, i.e., people who were in contact with them (without necessarily residing in a palace). In a broad sense, the court can be understood as all the people who are likely to be in contact with the king, but are not necessarily physically in his presence. The kings of Ur had a principal wife, who bore the title of "Queen" (
nin), although this allowed for exceptions, since Shu-Sin seems to have reserved this title for his mother Abi-simti; they were clearly descended from prestigious foreign royal lines. Then came a group of secondary wives,
lukur, a term originally designating priestesses considered the wives of a god, which probably had to do with the deification of the kings of Ur. There were important distinctions within this category, which included many women. They were housed in the various royal palaces, in
harems from which they were probably few able to leave, where they had an administration at their service. Their political role was limited or even nonexistent, but on the other hand they played an active role in the cult, first and foremost the queen. A wife (or concubine) of Shulgi, Shulgi-simti, whose archives were unearthed in
Drehem, thus initiated a foundation that provided animals to be sacrificed during various rituals. The rest of the members of the royal family also supported the king in running the kingdom. The princes held administrative, military, or religious responsibilities. Princesses also played an important role, particularly in the cult: several kings' daughters became high priestesses of the god
Nanna in Ur, as in the time of the kings of Akkad. Others were married to foreign kings or members of the kingdom's prominent families. There was thus a true patrimonialization of the kingdom, since the highest positions were reserved for members of the royal family or those related by blood to it. The Garshana archive thus documents the activities of an estate assigned to Shu-Kabta, a general and physician, and his wife Simat-Ishtaran, a royal princess. In return, these alliances tied the elites to the royal household, consolidating the influence of the kings. After the king, the second figure in the central administration is the
sukkalmah, which can be translated as "grand vizier" or "Prime Minister." He has very broad and ill-defined power, both in the civil and military domains, and can also be a provincial governor. This is the case of Arad-Nanna/Aradmu, the very influential Prime Minister of
Shu-Sîn and governor of the rich province of
Girsu as well as several border marches. The Prime Minister directs the
sukkal, traveling officials who also have various responsibilities and are dispatched throughout the kingdom. The king thus has a network of loyal controllers who allow him to know everything that is happening in his country. Other important figures in the central administration are known, such as the chief cupbearer (
zabar-dab) who seems to deal with religious matters.
Provincial administration One of the major challenges of Ur-Namma's reign and the first part of Shulgi's reign was the establishment of an administrative system uniting the ancient kingdoms that divided Lower Mesopotamia into a coherent whole. Rather than viewing the new entity as a
territorial state in the modern sense of the term, it has been proposed to see it as a kind of archipelago, the "islands" of which were the urban centers, the seats of households governing the domains of institutions and individuals, and connected to each other by roads and canals. The task of the kings was then to better connect these "islands" with each other, and above all to firmly link and attach them to their own household, which resulted in increasingly tight state control over the domains and therefore over the economy. The heart of the empire, the "country" (
kalam), is divided into about twenty provinces, the most important of which are ruled by the principal cities of the countries of Sumer and Akkad, in particular those of Ur, Uruk, Nippur, Umma and Girsu. Following the principle established in the Akkadian period, the provinces were headed by a civil governor (
ensi) appointed by the king, responsible in particular for the supervision of the population, tax collection, especially for the
bala redistribution system (see below), and justice. They often came from the leading families of the province and passed their positions down through inheritance, constituting locally influential dynasties. Unlike in the Akkadian period, the local elites were loyal to the government since there were no large-scale revolts. Temples domains were an important unit of production and labor organization, especially in the south of the kingdom. In the province of
Girsu, there were about fifteen such temples. They were managed by chief administrators (
šabra,
sanga), supervised by the governors. Each province also had a military governor (
šagina), who led the provincial garrisons and supervised royal land, independently of the governors. They were chosen from among the king's close associates and regularly changed assignments, which reinforced their dependence on the monarch and deprived them of a local anchor. Beyond the provinces of Lower Mesopotamia that constituted the heart of the empire, the territories subjugated by the armies of Ur were transformed into a "peripheral zone" (
ma-da). This was a defensive and tribute-collecting zone with fluctuating boundaries. These regions extended along the Tigris, perhaps as far as Ashur or even Nineveh, and east of this river, on the foothills of the Zagros, from Urbilum to Pashime and Susa. This was a frontier zone similar to the Roman
limes, comprising military colonies mixing Lower Mesopotamian populations, mainly soldiers, and indigenous peoples. They were ruled by military governors (
šagina) and have agricultural land. These regions did not contribute to the
bala redistribution system that normally concerned the central provinces, but were subject to a contribution called
gun ma-da, "periphery tax", paid by the delivery of livestock.
Unifiying policies Another problems faced by the first kings of the dynasty was the fact that each of the cities in their kingdom had long since developed its own practices regarding metrology, calendar, writing, and scribal training. An effort at harmonization is therefore being attempted in these different areas. 5-
mina weight with the name of the king
Shu-Shin, ca. 2030 BC.
Girsu,
Louvre Museum. A standardization of weights and measures is generally attributed to Shulgi, but it may have been the work of his father, and in any case, it is partly based on a similar reform from the Akkadian period. This system is based on a measure of capacity, the royal
gur (approximately 300 liters), and standardized conversions between the main metrological systems (units of volume and weight). The desire to harmonize standards is also evident in the establishment of a royal calendar (historians refer to it as a
Reichskalender), based on the one in use at Ur, and employed elsewhere (notably at Puzrish-Dagan) by the royal administration. This calendar is not stabilized, since it underwent several modifications. It is not a unification, since the local calendars remain in use for local affairs. The reform of the practices and training of scribes was also undertaken by Shulgi. It is based on institutions called "Houses of Tablets" (
e-dubba), a term generally designating places of training for scribes, but which here have an official aspect and could be considered as a kind of "academies." The scribes trained were responsible for the flourishing of Sumerian literature during the Ur III period, particularly official texts glorifying the ruling dynasty. The strengthening of the cohesion of the empire also involved expanding and making the communications network more reliable, based on roads and waterways. Administrative tablets document a network of roads and stopover lodges. They were traveled by messengers and officials, identified on tablets mentioning their mission and the compensation they received on occasion. These road works were accompanied during the period by various works on the canal network, since river navigation is important in southern Mesopotamia; they were also used for irrigating fields.
Law and justice .
Istanbul Archaeology Museums Dozens of sources provide information on the legal organization of the Kingdom of Ur, which was an essential element in its proper functioning and legitimacy. The ancient Mesopotamians had indeed paid great attention to the ideal of justice since very early times and had developed an empirical legal system. This is particularly evident in one of the most important legal documents of the period, the
Code of Ur-Nammu, known from fragmentary late copies that preserve only part of its prologue and nearly 40 court sentences, the so-called "laws" that were probably not intended to be applied rigorously. This text is rather a collection of exemplary or scholarly nature and a glorification text whose function is to highlight the figure of the just king. It is the earliest of its genre, paving the way for others down to the
Code of Hammurabi. The bulk of the legal sources consist of practical documents: approximately 250 trial reports written after the cases were concluded. They cover a variety of topics: inheritance, marriages, business, crimes and misdemeanors, slave-related issues, etc. The judicial structures of the Kingdom of Ur were based primarily on the king, the supreme judge, but he did not often exercise this function in person. He delegates this task to his administrators, primarily the provincial governors, but also to professional judges (
di-kud) who sit collegially. They may be assisted by a civil servant, the
maškim (which is never a permanent position), who investigates certain cases (e.g. taking depositions) and, above all, records them to potentially serve a witness later. The judicial authorities can be seized by anyone, man or woman, free or slave. They rule after studying evidence (testimonies, written documents), or require oaths to be sworn by the gods. The question of whether there is a centralization of judicial institutions is debated: it seems that the central power must, as in other areas, deal with local judicial authorities, which have a margin of autonomy and can limit its influence. ==Economy==