Private Financial Record Keeping

Based on the economic records available and provided by Joannes, the denizens of the neo-Babylonian era had a rigorous system of accounting that kept track of their economic activity on a hugely comprehensive scale. While the temple records kept by the administration or documents concerning business transactions or private leases are understandable, it is the existence of extensive family financial records that show the importance placed on economy.

The temple records detail transactions dealing with a wide variety of activities, chiefly agricultural ones. The scope of the lands the temple held and the massive amounts of food it produced required an equally massive labor force to tend to the fields and livestock. This in turn required an administrative system to keep track of the workers in the fields as well shepherds and other workers who took care of the livestock (Joannes 154-157). The records kept by the temple detail these activities, but because of the societal importance of the temple and the power it held, such records are not surprising. Such a large machine would have surely required an elaborate system of record-keeping to ensure all the parts were well-maintained and contributing to the overall good of the temple.

The rigor of the individual family’s record keeping, which spanned generations, is especially notable due to the emphasis placed upon it and the fact that such records even exist. These documents, which dealt with all financial matter concerning the family, included documents related to the marriage arrangements between parents or of children, deeds and titles of ownership or rent, and legal documents and lawsuits, most of which pertained to issues of disputed property (Joannes 148-149). These documents, which already were all-encompassing in their material for each generation of the family, were archived and passed down from generation to generation from the head of the family to his oldest son (Joannes 150). This role of the head of the family as financial bookkeeper marks it as one of the most important in the private social spheres of neo-Babylonian society and also implies strong familial bonds that perhaps extend beyond the nuclear family unit. Furthermore, the fact that the head of the family was responsible for all of the aforementioned documents and the decisions associated with them further denotes that that family unit, however large it may have been, and its activities formed the basis of the neo-Babylonian economy.