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Lugal-šà-lá-tuku: Glimpses into the Career of an Old Sumerian Chief Sea Fisherman from Lagaš and his Work Environment

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Abstract

This paper examines the professional career of the fisherman Lugalšalatuku in Presargonic Lagaš as it is traceable in the nearly 1800 economic records from the institution é-munus ‘house(hold) of the lady’ renamed by IriKAgina to é-dBa-Ú ‘temple of the (goddess) Ba’U’ in the wake of his reforms. Basing on instructive examples from this corpus, it is attempted to outline his specific career during the reigns of the rulers Enentarzid, Lugalanda and IriKAgina (c. 2336-2314 BC) in his role as a prominent overseer of a group of sea fishermen. Specifically, the economic and social relevance of professional fishing will be considered in the context of its internal structure and organisation as well as the involved professional fields and sub-groups.


Open access | Peer reviewed

Submitted: July 26, 2024 | Accepted: Sept. 17, 2024 | Published Dec. 19, 2024 | Language: en

Keywords É-munus • Lugalšalatuku • Old Sumerian fisheries • economic network

Copyright © 2024 Thomas E. Balke. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/KASKAL/5235-1939/2024/01/001