The Temples of Nippur

At Nippur, temples were massive redistribution complexes that monitored the income and expenditures of livestock and grain. 

Every day scribes met with herdsmen, neighborhood representatives, merchants, and royal officials to keep track of arriving animals, by whom, as well as their destinations: animals stayed in a few places, such as the storehouse field (shag4 nakkamtum) or lordship's stockyard (e2-tur3 nam-en-na). They were sometimes brought to other towns, too. Livestock belonged to both private individuals, as well as areas (the Nadītu neighborhood) and facilities (the guardhouse).

Hundreds more of these receipts detail how the temples structured this industry (see Robertson 1981): temples rented out fields and plow teams; hired teams of workers during harvests. The grain was used to pay out workers and store as fodder for animals, fattened up for sacrifice and consumption.

Robertson (1981) found that the two stockyards holding livestock were accessed for ritual and non-ritual consumption alike. The industry did not seem to have any particular reason why one stockyard was selected over another. He took this to suggest the city was a "free city".

We can now also draw upon comparative evidence of cattle tooth enamel from Early Dynastic Ur by @augustamcmahon.bsky.social et al (2022, link here). Their evidence suggests two distinct herds were related to diet, not socio-economic division. 

This means that it does not seem to matter to whom the animals belonged, nor who they went to for consumption; instead, there appears to be a relation to the animal's diet / regimen. Animals were organized with the explicit goal for sacrifice, not to immediately privilege shareholders.

The most frequent use of these animals were sattukkû-offerings, or daily offerings to gods, temples, and the like. Only after sacrifice was the meat redistributed among temple personal, contract workers, and overwhelmingly the "É.GAL TUŠ," or palace dependents.

So, although the livestock was not divided up along a social-economic hierarchy, the groups and individuals who regularly enjoyed them still were. Even when they were not the richest folks, the redistribution industry connected two of the most powerful institutions, the temple and the palace.