This dossier provides information on the sesame harvest in the Mari kingdom and the taxation system associated with it for palace incomes.
1. Sesame harvest in the Mari kingdom
As a summer crop, they began to sow and cultivate (erēšum) sesame in the Mari kingdom in June/July (months 3 and 4 in the calendar of Mari), when winter crops like barley were harvested (Reculeau 2009: 28). Apparently, there was no early sowing of sesame as suggested by M. Stol for southern Mesopotamia (1985: 119). According to the Mari archives, the spring flood April-May was particularly devastating in Mari, covering most of the arable plain. It is, therefore, quite impossible that early sowing of sesame could have been carried out before the end of May because the seeds would have been flooded for a long time, which is incompatible with the low tolerance of sesame to humidity (Bedigian 1985: 159). Before the sesame sowing, a form of initial ploughing (called ḫurrupum related to ḫarpum, “plough”), maybe to break soil, seems to have been carried out (Reculeau 2009: 28).
Harvest time for sesame was in autumn. In a letter to his king (ARM 13 037), the chief accountant of Mari explains that the sesame harvest occurred on month 7, September/October in the calendar of Mari. Moreover, the administrative texts recording amounts of sesame brought to the palace by the agrarian entrepreneurs just after the harvest, dated to month 9, November/December (ARM 08 097, ARM 21 135, ARM 21 137, ARM 22 276). It matches very well with the sesame’s growth period, estimated at 70 to 180 days, depending on sesame varieties (Bedigian 1985: 159). Without great precision in timing the harvest, the crop could stand too long on the field and the seed could “fall out” (maqātum) and become lost (ARM 33 227). The harvest of sesame consists of “tearing out” (nasāhum[glossary=nasāhum]) the sesame crops with its roots (ARM 13 037) and not cutting it like, for example, barley . The state of fields with some sesame stubbles still in the soil after the harvest and before the preparatory ploughing for the following season is called nishum[glossary=nishum] (see Dossier A.1.1.17).
After the harvest, sesame certainly underwent the same threshing, winnowing and drying operations as barley (Chambon 2018: 26).
2. Palaces‘ incomes after the harvest
Although the general image of the kingdom’s land register seems to be a patchwork of land ownership directly cultivated by the palace, by high-ranking persons, or by individuals on their account, the palace could draw resources from different systems of land use (Chambon 2020). In a letter from Yasmah-Addu’s reign (ARM 26/1 265), an administrator distinguishes the grain of šibšum-tax levied on commoners from the food allocations corresponding to biltum-dues of agrarian entrepreneurs. These taxes and dues are usually paid in kind, mainly in barley, but sometimes in sesame (see below).
Biltum-dues were usually paid collectively to the palace through governors when arable lands of the royal reserve were located around kingdom cities but could be paid directly by agrarian entrepreneurs when they were located in the district of Mari. For example, the agrarian entrepreneur Ana-Dagan-taklāku, who cultivated fields in the region of Mari, brought to the palace 11,700 qa of sesame just after the harvest (ARM 08 097). The summary ARM 22 276 records the total of sesame amounts for two consecutive years, cultivated by plough teams in the district of Mari and elsewhere and brought to the palace certainly as biltum-tax.
Šibšum-tax was also collected by governors or king’s representatives and took place just after the harvest and when sesame was sown again (Reculeau 2009: 27-28). The tax payment in barley is already known according to tabular texts listing areas and expected yields of fields in different localities (Reculeau 2018: 35-40). While the accounting unit of biltum-dues was the expected production of each agrarian entrepreneur (who could cultivate palace fields in different places), that of the šibšum-tax seems to be based on the estimated productivity of entire areas managed by individuals for themselves. During the harvest, “experts” (ebbū) were sent onsite by the palace to check whether the šibšum-paid was in line with what had been estimated (Ziegler 2011: 21). If not, lists of arrears of the growers, grouped by localities where they cultivated sesame, were set (see for example ARM 21 138).