Joseph C. Miller Memorial Lecture by Andrew Pottorf

How did political shifts in southern Babylonia during the third millennium BCE impact land and social status? For most of this period, independent city-states coexisted, sometimes clashing with each other or with Kish in the north. Eventually, the region unified under the Sargonic dynasty and then the Third Dynasty of Ur. Despite these changes, the land-tenure system stayed stable due to environmental needs, particularly large-scale irrigation. Most arable land was controlled by rulers, governors, and temples, with individual land rights depending on one’s freedom and social status. Society had three main groups: free citizens, who owned land and were conscripted part-time; serflike individuals, who were free but conscripted full-time and rarely had land; and enslaved people, who were unfree and did not possess land. This presentation will explore the continuity and shifts in land ownership and liberty across the Early Dynastic, Sargonic, and Ur III periods.