Unsurprisingly, Great Babylon had lots of dirty laundry

February 2, 2021 2:39 AM

Professionals of the male-only occupation of washerman/fuller (Akkadian ašlāku, Sumerogram maybe 𒈐𒌓?) in the Neo-Babylonian Empire—some of whom were slaves and some free—signed formal contracts to do their clients' laundry for a period of time. (←if this link takes you to a French-language web site, you need to click the TÉLÉCHARGER, ‘download’ button to view the English-language PDF)

According to the latter journal article above, two of the contract texts appear to indicate that Babylonian slaves could independently operate what we would think of as commercial laundries and that they had employees. Some free ašlākum had family names but some had only personal names. In addressing the question of why the ubiquitous domestic slaves of the wealthy patrons weren't the ones doing the laundry, the author Caroline Waerzeggers writes,

Specialist labour must have been either (relatively) cheap and efficient, or desirable among the rich. So far, there are no laundry contracts from early Neo-Babylonian times: while this could be a coincidence, the emergence of a class of professionals specializing in domestic services could have been part of the general upwards economic trend in the mid-first millennium BCE.

Images from the ruins of the historical Babylonian city of Borsippa / Birs Nimrud in Iraq's Babylon Province / Babil Governorate (and images of artifacts looted from Borsippa by Westerners now in overseas museums), where the cuneiform laundry contract tablets were recovered.

If you just can't get enough Babylonian laundry infotainment, or you're a textile maniac, there's an even more interesting acadmic article I couldn't find an open-access link for which you can get to if you or your libraries have JSTOR: Wasserman, Nathan. “Treating Garments in the Old Babylonian Period: ‘At the Cleaners’ in a Comparative View.” Iraq, vol. 75, 2013, pp. 255–277. “At the Cleaners” being a Babylonian television sitcom a text, this time from the Old Babylonian period, detailing an argument between a washerman and his customer. Although Wasserman wants to spoil the fun by claiming that the text is probably not supposed to be humorous:

The customer is annoying but not insane, and his instructions are tiresome but not absurd: they were perfectly understood by the fuller, who does not say that the instructions are nonsensical, only that they are tedious and long.

[...]

Without denying that the situation described in UET 6/2, 414—a layman giving detailed instructions to a craftsman—is unusual, perhaps even humorous, the fact that so many rare words are found in this text suggests that the main purpose of “At the Cleaners” was didactic: to teach or to test knowledge of different technical terms pertaining to the fuller's work. If anything, “At the Cleaners” is an inner-circle parody of the genre of wisdom dialogues: the irritating customer is the self-important scribe who cannot resist the temptation of telling the artisan how to do his work.

Bonus link: The Chicago Assyrian Dictionary: The Final Chapter—a 4½ minute interview with lexicographer-Assyriologist Martha T. Roth about landing the plane on the nearly century-long CAD project (previously). The centennial anniversary of the inauguration of the project will be this year.

Nota bene: the ancient Akkadian / Babylonian languages are referred to as “Assyrian” depending on context but the related, yet different, languages of the modern Assyrian people are also referred to as “Assyrian”.

Previously: the history of washing clothes, Babylonian stew recipe, cuneiform accounting, Babylonian mathematics, BabylonianCustomerServiceComplaintsFilter

posted by XMLicious (8 comments total)

(The FPP title is intended to allude to this BTW, not the older sexist connotation.)
posted by XMLicious at 2:48 AM on February 2, 2021

I don't know why the author is surprised that large households would engage launderers rather than handle things themselves. This was common well into living memory: laundry is most efficient at scale, and it takes a whole lot of work, so you save it up and have a professional team come in with a big copper and do the whole lot at once. That's how my middle-class Hungarian grandparents did it, and I understand that was the common practice.
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:57 AM on February 2, 2021 [2 favorites]

Maybe the difference producing the expectation is quantity of textiles—precious little, at best made on a manual loom or something like that (after raising, chasing down, and shearing sheep with copper or bronze blades, cleaning and fulling—without plumbing, in the river or something hoping the water's clean enough—and carding or combing wool by hand, spinning thread, etc.) in ancient times versus machine-made, burn-down-the-garment-district-accidentally volumes of plant-based and artificial fiber cloth in the modern era?
posted by XMLicious at 3:08 AM on February 2, 2021 [3 favorites]

On the other hand a lower quantity of more valuable textiles could be another reason to outsource it. You don't have enough laundry to warrant a dedicated washer-person within your household, but you do want it done by an expert. It also means you don't need to invest in any specialised equipment/chemicals required.

This is fascinating - thanks in particular for the previouslies. I was listening to the Mesopotamia episode of the You're Dead to Me podcast over the weekend, which mentioned most of these points, and it saves me having to look them up!
posted by scorbet at 6:11 AM on February 2, 2021 [4 favorites]

washerman

Are we sure it wasn’t a misreading of “wellerman?”
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:31 AM on February 2, 2021 [1 favorite]

"I don't know why the author is surprised that large households would engage launderers rather than handle things themselves."

Maybe because there are still now places in the world where even large households handle laundry in-house?

I've been in places where it is kind of taboo to have strangers deal with one's laundry, specially underwear and bed linens. I've been in places were laundry day is where the family (or most of it) spends a few hours together socializing.
posted by Dr. Curare at 9:39 AM on February 2, 2021 [2 favorites]

When I lived in Pakistan in the 70's we has a man who came once a week and did the laundry in the spare bedroom that had small bathroom with a bathtub he used. We had a funky washing machine for small stuff. It took him half a day each time.
He rotated though several houses in the neighborhood during the week.

Everything took longer to do there so hiring people to do some domestic stuff made sense.
posted by boilermonster at 10:08 AM on February 2, 2021

there are still now places in the world where even large households handle laundry in-house

I'm sure there are, and it would be interesting to know what cultural factors led to one or the other method being the norm.

The other thing I'd like to know is, who handled the coloured laundry? Dyeing was a lot less advanced back then, but IIRC Akkadian tablets mention at least six or seven sorts of coloured fabric. Were there coloured-garment specialists to handle this sort of stuff, or were coloured garments too precious to launder?
posted by Joe in Australia at 11:53 PM on February 2, 2021 [1 favorite]