Bala: Economic exchange between center and provinces in the Ur III state

This dissertation investigates a fundamental problem for the study of Mesopotamia in the Ur III period (2112--2004 B.C.): what was the relationship between the central government and the provinces? Specifically, the dissertation focuses on one system of payments known as "bala," or "rotation," so called as province's payments rotated month by month throughout the year. This system had a dual nature. Primarily it functioned as a tax, consisting of approximately one half of a province's total output, though the bala system also served to provision the central shrines. My dissertation is the first to take an inter-archival approach, considering over 30,000 Sumerian tablets from the cities of Umma, Lagash, and Puzrish-Dagan.;The first chapter presents a synthesis of the structure of the Ur III state. Through a series of reforms, the Ur HI kings altered the old system of loose crown oversight over the provinces, replacing it with strict centralization and economic interdependence enforced by a large bureaucracy.;The second and third chapters focus on the province Umma. The second chapter outlines the evidence for payments of agricultural and manufactured goods, as well as labor, from the province to the central government. Chapter Three addresses the difficulties in reconstructing the movement of livestock between the province Umma and the central government and uses sources from both Umma and Puzrish-Dagan.;Chapter Four outlines the evidence for the bala payments of a second province, Lagash, focusing on agricultural goods and labor expended on behalf of the crown. Chapter Five considers the evidence for the transfer of livestock between Lagash and agents of the crown.;In the conclusion, I summarize the Ur III bala system and consider possible precursors from previous historical periods. The appendices contain charts tabulating the evidence discussed in chapters two to five as well as the edition of approximately 150 unpublished tablets from the British Museum, the Yale Babylonian Collection and the Harvard Semitic Museum.