July 06, 2009

Cloth Production in Ancient Ur

We have economic records from ancient Ur (circa 1900 B.C.) which analyze an annual wool cloth productions for that city-state of 4 million pounds.
Stanley Bulbach, "Tropos," Spin•Off, December 1982, p. 3.

That is a whole lot of wool cloth coming out of Abraham's hometown* (Genesis 11:27, 28.). All spun by hand, and with drop spindles, yes?

Since the information comes from economic records, I am guessing that the cloth was produced for trade or for domestic sale. Cloth produced in the home for the people in the home wouldn't get officially tallied, I don't think.

If you're trying to place Ur on the map, it would have been somewhere near the Persian Gulf.


*The "Old Testament History at a Glance" chart on p. 119 in Eerdmans' Handbook to the Bible, puts Abraham leaving Ur just before 1900 B.C.E.

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