The Exchange of Goods and Services in Pre-Sargonic LagashHardcover, 14 October 2010

The study of Rosemary Prentice examines the data provided by c.1800 cuneiform tablets which appear to have belonged to the archive of an institution called e2-MI2 "house of the woman", i.e. "household of the ruler's wife", located in Girsu, in the city-state of Lagash. They document the various transactions and economic activities of that institution over a period of approximately twenty years during the latter years of the Early Dynastic period during the rule of Enentarzi, of Lugalanda, and of UruKAgina. After one year as ensi (the title used by his two predecessors) UruKAgina adopted the title lugal and the e2-MI2 was renamed the e2-dba-U2 - the goddess Bau was the consort of Ningirsu, the patron god of Lagash. Despite the change in name, the archive appears to reflect a continuity in the administration. The archive of the e2-MI2 / dba-U2 is the largest early assemblage of accounts and records of transactions currently available from southern Mesopotamia and thus provides both a suitable and a sufficient documentation for an investigation of the exchange of goods and services. The unity of time and place provides an opportunity to take advantage of a large number of documents encapsulated in its own world and to derive an understanding of the working of an institution based on their own internal context. The texts bear witness of and the study provides new insight