BUSINESS LIFE IN THE DAYS OF ABRAHAM

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22985, 12 March 1938, Page 1 (Supplement)

BUSINESS LIFE IN THE DAYS OF ABRAHAM

By E. M. BLAIKLOCK

" r JHE river, my lord, broke its banks, and my crop is gone. I apply for an adjustment of my mortgage." The High Priest who manages the property of the god, sits in court upon the ziggurat of Ur. "Let Abraham's interest be waived this year," he orders. Well he might, the rate is anything up to twenty per cent. The busy pen of the scribe cuts wedge-shaped characters into the cake of clay. In an hour's time Abraham can have his changed contract baked into the hard tablet. As ho descends the great sloping stairway, he can take an interest now in its mighty bulk of coloured brick, in its frescoes, and in the panorama of Ur, which the King of Babylon was to make a smoking ruin in a score of years. Fanciful? Well, the law ran: "If a man have a debt against him, and the storm-god inundates his_ field and carries away his produce, in that year his contract shall bo changed, the interest shall not bo payable to his creditor." Preserved by the Sands It was one of tho host of the laws of Sumer which King Hammurabi later gathered and carved on stone, for tho kindly sands to hide and keep for modern archaeologists. And if Abraham of Ur was not a farmer, a man of the same name up the river was. He lived in the same century, this other Abraham. Ho hired an ox for a shekel a month, paying half a shekel down.

Mort£a£e Adjustment and Monthly Returns

Sididinam was his landlord, who gave careful receipts for rent on half-pound blocks of clav. In connection with the same Abraham, is an interesting document signed by one Khabilkinum. A waggon is leased for u year from a "Drive Yourself" firm, and the owner stipulates that the vehicle shall not bo taken to Palestine I We feel we know the busy man qui to well, from the tablets chance has kept. We hope he always closed his sluicegates and did not inundate his neighbour's farm, becoming liable to compensation in grain, "measured out on the basis of the production of the neighbouring field." For so said the law that joined Hammurabi's collection. A Demand Note Perhaps the ancestor of the Hebrew people was in business in t»wn. Who was the shrewd Sumerian whose junior partner in another centre sent to him one Shamrishbelilani with a demand note for fourteen shekels? Business was flagging in the branch, and debts were mounting. At any rate, the head of the firm replies: "I have sent to Waradilishu forty shekels of silver and the receipt of that has beeu acknowledged in writing in the presence of mv witnesses. He has gone to Assyria. In the matter of your communication concerning the fourteen shekels of Shamashbelilani, I have not paid the money over to him. Do you catch Waradilishu, and make him weigh out the silver with the required interest, deduct the fourteen shekels from this sum and remit me tho balance." Was Waradilishu caught? And what did the junior partner say? The sands give no answer.

The Sumerians were essentially busi-ness-like. We have piles _of tablets from the business corporations of the temples. For all incomings and outgoings the priests drew up formal, witnessed receipts, copies of which were duly filed. As the stores were drawn upon, animals taken for sacrifice, oil issued for squeaking door hinges, or material for statues, all these were noted on vouchers signed by the storemaster and the recipient. There were factories on the temple premises for the disposal of raw material paid in as rent and tribute. We have elaborate balance-sheets for a spinning factory. They are monthly returns. There is a nominal roll of women operatives, and in parallel columns the amount of raw wool each has received, her food-bill and estimate of profit or loss. Fixed Rents and Wages We pictured Abraham in the Mortgage Adjustment Court. He knew all about fixed rents and wages and governmental interference in business. He knew about salesmen, too. It is not at all absurd to picture the travelling patriarch barring his tent door against the agent of a firm of Babylonian oilmerchants two days out from the capital. A large section of the code regulates the employment of salesmen. The calling had its trials. Hear this: "If a merchant has given to an agent wool, grain or . oil to sell, the agent shall write down the price, account for the money, and draw a receipt. If on the road an enemy robs him of anything, the agent shall give an account of it by oath, and be held not responsible." And so from strange script incised on stone and clay we fit together the vivid picture of the past. Sir Arthur Evans gave us back Minos and Crete, Schliemann, Troy and Agamemnon. Mesopotamian archaeology has given lis back Abraham and old Sumeria. Tt was a French archaeologist who found Hammurabi's code. It was unearthed at Susa, the Shusan of the Bible, a full generation before Woolley began his brilliant work at Ur, whqse civilisation the King's code must illustrate. The three pieces of black stone which establish Babylon's claim to be a fountain of ancient law now stand fitted together to form a tapering column over seven feet in height, in the Louvre. Tt was cpvered originally by forty-nine columns of script totalling quite eight thousand words. Sobering Lessons The script begins with a recital of the great King's deeds: " Hammurabi the governor, named by Bei am I, who brought about welfare and abundance." (How ancient is the claim!) " When God sent me to rule, I established law and justice and promoted the welfare of the people." Then follow the laws of the epilogue. "■lf a man pay attention to my words, and efface not my judgments, then will Shamash prolong that man's reign If ho pay no attention to my words, if he forget my curse and fear not the curse of God, if he efface my name from this monument and write thereou his own, or commission another to do so, as for that man, be he King or lord, priest or commoner, may the great God break his sceptre and curse his fate." The code then contains not only the most ancient collection of laws, but also a claim to copyright nearly two thousand years old. The old law-giver can rest in his grave secure. The civilisation of that ancient cradle of the race weakened and fell. The sands of the desert made mounds along the Euphrates' bank of the cities of Abraham and Hammurabi. But what the desert hid the desert has returned. Laborious and scientific work and happy chance have joined' hands to give us back page on page of ancient life and show how few new things there are beneath the sun. And this is one of the most Sobering lessons of modern archaeology.