Who paid the taxes in ancient mesopotamia

In ancient Mesopotamia, they didn’t have coined money as ancient households had to pay taxes in kind, and they paid different taxes throughout the year. Poll taxes required each man to deliver a cow or sheep to the authorities. Merchants transporting goods from one region to another were subject to tolls, duty fees, and other taxes. To avoid as many of these as possible, they frequently resorted to smuggling. Almost everything was taxed such as livestock, the boat trade, fishing, even funerals. However, the most burdensome obligation a household faced was its labor obligation. This was called “going” or “burden” in Babylonian languages. A free man, head of his household, owed the government many months of labor service. If he were lucky, his service might entail harvesting the government’s barley fields or digging the silt out of canals. If he were unlucky, he had to do military service, leaving the security of home to fight wars abroad, perhaps never to return.