Abstract

The social stratification of the Ur III society has been debated for about a century, particularly between Soviet Marxist and Weberian and other non-Marxist scholars. This presentation utilizes a Weberian stratification model relying upon native status groups (Stände), also known as orders, and theoretical economic classes based on property. The orders were a majority of free citizens, a moderate minority of serflike UN-il2 (“menials”), and a smaller minority of enslaved people. The upper class was composed of only the wealthiest citizens, the middle class included most of the remaining citizens and the few wealthiest UN-il2, whereas the lower class consisted of the poorest citizens, the remaining UN-il2, and all enslaved people. Only citizens experienced a substantial amount of economic autonomy or freedom, and everyone in the upper and middle classes were generally stable economically. Based on this Weberian stratification model, the majority of the population was legally and economically free, whereas the Soviet Marxist scholars contended that the majority was at least economically unfree, if not also legally unfree. In order to support these assertions, this presentation focuses on datasets from the province of Umma relating to various mandatory and voluntary employment arrangements and their compensations.