From the code of Hammurabi we also gain considerable information with
regard to agricultural pursuits in ancient Babylonia, for elaborate
regulations are given concerning the landowner's duties and
responsibilities, and his relations to his tenants. The usual practice
in hiring land for cultivation was for the tenant to pay his rent in
kind, by assigning a certain proportion of the crop, generally a third
or a half, to the owner. If a tenant hired certain land for cultivation
he was bound to till it and raise a crop, and should he neglect to do
so he had to pay the owner what was reckoned as the average rent of the
land, and he had also to break up the land and plough it before handing
it back. As the rent of a field was usually reckoned at harvest, and its
amount depended on the size of the crop, it was only fair that damage to
the crop from flood or storm should not be made up by the tenant; thus
it was enacted by the code that any loss from such a cause should be
shared equally by the owner of the field and the farmer, though if the
latter had already paid his rent at the time the damage occurred he
could not make a claim for repayment.
[Illustration: 287.jpg THE VILLAGE OF NEBI YUNUS.]
Built on one of the mounds marking the site of the Assyrian
city of Nineveh. The mosque in the photograph is built over
the traditional site of the prophet Jonah's tomb.
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