Bala taxation

Bala, Sumerian for "exchange",[1] is the method by which the Ur III dynasty of Mesopotamia collected goods such as livestock, grain, labor and craft products from its provinces.

[3] Those projects were built by Gurush/Geme (Sumerian), men and women workers respectively, paid using goods collected from the tax system.

500 elite level individuals are believed to have controlled 188 million liters of grain annually through the bala taxation system.

The materials collected from the bala taxation system would be recorded by kingdom administrators on clay tablets in cuneiform.

There were 10,000-12,000 tablets reportedly found at Puzrish-Dagan (modern Drehem), which was an important administrative center for the bala system, though it has never been officially excavated.

"Lists register, similarly, the quantities of barley and bran fed to animals upon a sheep-run near Lagash; it appears that in one month there was maintained a stock of over 22,000 sheep, nearly a thousand cows, and still more of other meat cattle; in three months fodder was provided for over 50,000 sheep, 1500 oxen, and this was but one of many such stations."

[14] The tablets disappear after the second year of Ibbi-Sin's reign, when scholars believe that the state stopped using the bala system.