Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/768

 742 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

wage-earning laborers ; while last of all came a great body of house and other slaves, upon whose labor the entire economic structure was largely based.

Irrigation on a large scale produced abundant wheat and sesame from the rich alluvial soil ; vast herds of sheep and cattle were counted among the resources of the land. Cities built of sun-dried and kiln-burnt brick were connected by highways or canals which covered the valley with a web of communication. Boat transportation was developed to a high degree ; merchants and business firms, represented by authorized agents, organized their enterprises over a wide area; foreign commerce centered in the markets of Babylonia, whither converging international high- ways brought teak and cotton from India, stone, spices, copper, and gold from Sinai and Egypt, cedar from Syria, and marbles from the mountains to the east. Manufactures flourished: Babylonia was famous for its rugs of wool; its artisans were skilful in metal-working and stone-cutting, in tanning, dyeing, wood-working, pottery, brick-making, and boat-building. 1

The complex life of this enterprising people is reflected in their code. The earlier stages of communal property unless there remained traces in common pasture lands and patriarchal family goods had disappeared. Individual ownership is assumed and safeguarded throughout. Property in crown and temple lands and herds was vested in the king and in reli- gious corporations. All ownership was precisely defined in legal documents in the form of tablets ( 37, 48) ; every legal transac- tion was duly set down in deed, bond, contract, certificate of deposit, receipt, or marriage agreement. Many contingencies are anticipated and provided for in the code ; all suggest the intricacy of a highly developed economic life, and the need of protection against keen, tricky, dishonest, or inefficient men. This finds illustration in the constant demand in the code for witnesses to testify to the transfer of property, or to the ownership of stolen goods or runaway slaves (7, 9-13, 123, 124). The laws disclose a persistent effort to guard the owner of property against loss. His sons and slaves may not in any circumstances

'GooospEED, op. dt., pp. 71-76.