urage and
a plentiful supply of water. The king received reports from the chief
shepherds and herdsmen, and it was the duty of the governors of the
chief cities and districts of Babylonia to make tours of inspection
and see that due care was taken of the royal flocks and sheep. The
sheep-shearing for all the flocks that were pastured near the capital
took place in Babylon, and the king used to send out summonses to his
chief shepherds to inform them of the day when the shearing would take
place; and it is probable that the governors of the other great cities
sent out similar orders to the shepherds of flocks under their charge.
Royal and priestly flocks were often under the same chief officer, a
fact which shows the very strict control the king exercised over the
temple revenues.

The interests of the agricultural population were strictly looked
after by the king, who secured a proper supply of water for purposes of
irrigation by seeing that the canals and waterways were kept in a proper
state of repair and cleaned out at regular intervals. There is also
evidence that nearly every king of the First Dynasty of Babylon cut new
canals, and extended the system of irrigation and transportation which
had been handed down to him from his fathers. The draining of the
marshes and the proper repair of the canals could only be carried out
by careful and continuous supervision, and it was the duty of the local
governors to see that the inhabitants of villages and owners of land
situated on the banks of a canal should keep it in proper order. When
this duty had been neglected complaints were often sent to the king,
who gave orders to the local governor to remedy the defect. Thus on one
occasion it had been ordered that a canal at Erech which had silted
up should be deepened, but the dredging had not been carried out
thoroughly, so that the bed of the canal soon silted up again and boats
were prevented from entering the city. In these circumstances Hammurabi
gave pressing orders that the obstruction was to be removed and the
canal made navigable within three days.

Damage was often done to the banks of canals by floods which followed
the winter rains, and a letter of Abeshu' gives an interesting account of
a sudden rise of the water in the Irnina canal so that it overflowed its
banks. The king was building a palace at the city of Kar-Irnina, which
was supplied by the Irnina canal, and every year it was possible to put
so much work