ABSTRACT
During the time of Sumer’s greatness and the prosperity which its successor states maintained, life went on busily in the cities, despite the sombre, occasional courts-in-death of the kings or their surrogates, the instability of the prevailing political system and the perennial threats of invasion and unrest. But as the Sumerians were essentially a down-to-earth people, much of their life consisted of concentrating on the simple process of making a living. The profit motive was strong in Sumer and its pursuit was more agreeable and the play of market forces was certainly more dear to the average Urite, for example, than the pursuit of an uncertain immortality by dead courtiers or the pretensions and schemes of aggrandizement of little princes.
