Between protection and exploitation: Children in temple and palace households as a socioeconomic phenomenon in Early Southern Mesopotamia (3200-2000 BC)

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Cuneiform texts from early Southern Mesopotamia record a remarkable social phenomenon: temple and palace households supported numerous children from underprivileged social strata. While these minors were provided with food and shelter, they were recruited as labourers from early childhood. Their social mobility was severely restricted and they were often victims of disease and violence.The aim of the project is to investigate the support of children in institutional households as a social phenomenon and to identify its causes, forms and consequences. I suggest that the support of children by the households had a clear socioeconomic purpose. On the one hand, socially unprotected children were not left alone, whereby social tension within the early urban society was alleviated. On the other hand, as both minors and eventual adults they were an important source of labour for the temple and palace economies.For data collection a database of relevant text references to children will be created. These will be systematically examined within three thematic clusters:A) Terminology and demographic structure: Gender and age categories documented in the texts, as well as morbidity and mortality rates among children will be quantified. As the result, their demographic structure will be reconstructed.B) Influx and Reproduction: The reasons for the influx of children into institutional households will be identified. At the same time the extent to which the families of dependent workers contributed to an increase in the labour force in institutional households will be evaluated.C) Support and use as labour: Rations for children and the organization of child labour will be examined in a diachronic perspective and linked to gender and age categories.The data analysis will consist of two phases. First, the text documents which contain references to children will be interpreted using a historical-philological approach. Second, statistical and historical demography methods will be used to track the dynamics of these aspects of children´s lives and to identify historical trends. Quantitative and qualitative data will be consolidated and placed in the historical context of early Southern Mesopotamia.The anticipated results of this study go beyond the traditional bounds of Ancient Near Eastern Studies: besides filling a gap in the social history of early Mesopotamia, the project will contribute to socially relevant discussions of reasons child labour and the role of the state in child protection on the basis of empirical data and theoretical discussion.