Note 111 — III. THE CITIES OF MESOPOTAMIA

M. David, “Bemerkungen zur Leidener Keilschriftsammlung,” Revue de l’Histoire du droit, XIV, 3-6, has pointed out that the “Staatssozialismus” of early Sumerian times was only fully replaced by a free economy under the First Babylonian Dynasty, about 1800 B.C. Under the Third Dynasty of Ur, private property could consist of houses and the gardens belonging to them, but not of arable fields, which belonged to the temple or to the king.