Technological and cultic usage of oils and fats is well known, but it was not exhaustively collected for this Digital Data Collection.
Oil was regularly applied to leather objects, including drums and other musical instruments. One used lard together with potash to clean textiles and to make them more robust. Fish oil was a lubricant and sealant for objects that were in contact with water like ships or ropes employed in their handling.
Oil was sometimes dedicated to deities in precious vessels, and the smell of scented oils and fats may have contributed to the atmosphere in chapels and shrines. Furthermore, anointing parts of the doors constituted a sacred practice. Butter as a foodstuff could be added to the sacrificial meal.
Lamps apparently only turn up in the Middle Bronze Age, and the first references to oil used for lamps we are aware of stem from the palace of Mari.
The history of oils and fats in Mesopotamia begins with butter already in the earliest written records in the late fourth millennium BCE, the Uruk period, with the earliest written cuneiform texts (A.2.1.08). Whereas then milk from sheep, goats, and cows was processed to produce butter, from the third millennium onwards the written evidence indicates that exclusively milk from goats and cows was used in dairy production, but never from sheep (A.2.1.01).
A new understanding of the product butter was achieved by careful analysis of the Sumerian terminology, the quantities involved and the directions of transfers: Butter was produced from fermented milk, and cheese was a by-product of this process (A.2.1.02, A.2.1.03, A.2.1.04). No heating for true Ghee can be ascertained, but environmental heat may have reduced the water content and thus enhanced the shelf-life of butter (A.2.1.01).
As an ointment, butter was often aromatized as the other oils and fats, but it was also used as a foodstuff, especially for desserts with dates and other fruit.
Olive oil and almond oil are the two other vegetable oils used in early Mesopotamia beyond the dominant sesame oil introduced in the 23rd century BCE.
Olive oil appears already earlier, in the 24th century BCE in the Syrian capital of Ebla (A.1.2.03). It was pressed in the region where olive trees were cultivated, that is in the historical region of Syria west of the Euphrates (Dossiers A.1.2.02, A.1.2.03). Olive oil was traded to Mari on the Middle Euphrates and rarely even reached lowland Mesopotamia (A.1.2.01).
Almond oil was traded to Babylonia from the Zagros mountains and reached the court of Gudea of Lagash (around 2120 BCE, A.1.3.01), and we propose that almond oil was also imported during the Ur III period (21st century BCE, A.1.3.02).
Both vegetable oils were used for anointing and thus for skincare and medicinal application. Still, the written sources never indicate that they had served as foodstuffs or in the preparation of food. The evidence for almond oil can thus not be taken as indicative of the domestication and cultivation of the sweet almond.
The flesh of mammals and fish contains fat and thus the intake of meat and fish was the basic way how fat was consumed in early Syro-Mesopotamia. Evidently, this aspect is not explicitly reflected in the cuneiform texts.
Fat was furthermore gained from animals, and tallow from sheep and, more frequently, lard from pigs feature prominently in the textual record. These fats were added to foodstuffs, used in craftsmanship and served for anointing. It is noteworthy that lard was a homemade product that was bought up by the merchants of the governor.
The rivers and marshes of Iraq abound with fish, and fishermen provided the urban centres with a part of their catch. These shipments regularly included fish oil, a needed lubricant and sealant for objects in contact with water like ropes or boats (A.2.4.01, A.2.4.03).
Other animal fats appear in the scholarly lexical lists, but not in the archival record documenting economic transactions. Therefore, they did not play a substantial role in the production and consumption of fats.
The oil-plant sesame (Sumerian ĝeš-i3, Akkadian šamaššammū) was introduced in Mesopotamia from India and this important agricultural innovation
during the 23rd century when the empire of Akkade came into closer contact with the Gulf and Indus regions (A.1.1.25). Sesame was soon cultivated on the fields of Southern Mesopotamia (A.1.1.02, A.1.1.05, A.1.1.10). By the Middle Bronze Age it had become an agricultural staple product in Babylonia, the Middle Euphrates valley and Northern Mesopotamia (A.1.1.14, A.1.1.15).
The pressing of sesame oil (Sumerian i3-ĝeš, Akkadian ellum) can be reconstructed from lists of tools, including both grinding stones and wooden mortars (A.1.1.12, A.1.1.21, A.1.1.22). Sesame oil was used widely for anointing, and the residue product of the pressing process, the sesame oil cake, provided nutritious food.
The steps between production and usage are often touched by the archival texts. The oils and fats discussed in this project are delivered from the producers, for example, farmers, herders or fishermen, to the consumers via middlemen. The merchant imported olive oil and almond oil into Babylonia, but he bought lard from the citizens as well.
Often oils and fats are transported and stored in various jars and vessels. No specific term seems to exist for an oil storage room.
Distribution, transport and storage are topics that appear in many more contexts and the data that can be retrieved on this page can be taken as exemplary.
The aspect of prices for various oils and fats can be identified more easily in some dossiers.
Vegetable oils and animal fats, denominated together as i3 in Sumerian, šamnum in Akkadian, are well-documented substances in cuneiform texts from Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Syria in the Early and Middle Bronze Age (3000-1600 BCE). The geographic map offers an overview with a list of sites known either as the provenance of artefacts or from the contents of the cuneiform texts or the discussions.
The date of texts or collections is indicated both by the historical label (such as „Sargonic“, or „Early Old Babylonian“), and an absolute date according to the Middle Chronology (Ḫammurāpi of Babylon 1792-1750 BCE). During the Ur III and Old Babylonian periods (2100-1600 BCE) numerous archival texts are dated exactly by their year dates.
For the Old Babylonian period, the correlation between year dates and the absolute chronology can be found here.
But also for earlier periods, a tablet or a collection can quite confidently be dated to a few decades. For this project, we were the first to compile a comprehensive chronological table for third-millennium ‚archives‘ and it can be accessed here.
The bulk of evidence comes from archival texts, administrative texts from institutions, legal documents and letters. A most relevant factor is the range of an archive, i. e. the ancient institutional collection of cuneiform texts. Dossiers are files discussing textual sources pertaining to a specific topic at a certain place and time. Glossaries of Akkadian and Sumerian terms and indexes of personal names provide information for the specialist.
Archival documents indicate precise quantities for the various substances and objects dealt with in the texts; an overview of early cuneiform metrology and the corresponding values in modern metric units is provided here.
In ancient Mesopotamian cuisine, animal fats and butter were employed more often, whereas vegetable oils are missing there. Mesopotamians consumed fat regularly by eating fish and meat from sheep, but more importantly, pork from the pigs living around the houses.
Vegetable oils were generally not considered as a foodstuff or an ingredient of dishes in early Mesopotamia. Perhaps sesame oil – but not olive oil – was used for food preparation at the royal table in Mari (A.1.2.02).
Butter, on the other hand, was highly esteemed in Mesopotamian cuisine especially in the preparation of desserts together with dates and other fruit (XXX). Lard was digested together with bread (XXX). Fish oil, on the other hand, was of technical usage, only.
Anointing represented the most important usage of oils and fats in Early Mesopotamia.
Aromatization of oils was achieved by placing pieces of wood and other aromatic substances into the oil, furthermore, apple and flour were added. Scented oils were a standard gift for guests invited to meals, and most often represented a gift for women.
Oil was applied after washing, and beyond the protection of the skin, the massage of oil entailed healing and healthcare.
The dossiers and texts that can be retrieved in the Digital Data Collection for these topics do not aptly represent the wealth of data regarding this aspect.