While border provinces were exploited for the needs of the central administration, nonetheless the actions of the Assyrian king could also stimulate the local economy in various ways: the simple presence of Assyrian military and administrative personnel provided consumers who had to be maintained at least to some extent, by trade with the local population a matter often overlooked in historical research. Several letters show that extensive building activity was earned out in the provinces under the king's orders. No. 15 describes the building of a town and a fort in the province of Amidi, no. 210 the building of a fort in the province of Mazamua, and no. 211 the building of forts and houses in the bordering Allabria. Royal roads were built and repaired (no. 229, road to Mazamua), and were a medium for easy communication with the centre, thus facilitating commerce. Cf. especially no. 227, dealing with improving the mule express towards Mazamua.[[41]]
Installing troops and deportees to cultivate arable land in provinces (see, e.g., no. 14, concerned with Chaldean deportees in Bit-Zamani) could result in improvement of the local economy. Troops exempted from taxes evidently gave rise to a local economic circuit not burdened by contributions to the centre.[[42]] It was doubtless in the king's interest to increase the economic potential of the provinces, for the expansion of arable land was vital for creating a good basis for future exploitation (cf. no. 225, mentioning a royal order to three different governors to cultivate 1,000 homers of seed corn each).
Governors were naturally concerned with maintaining a high economic standard in their administrative sector. Materials needed by military installations were at times provided by the centre, cf. no. 48, listing equids, camels, sheep and carts, and no. 152, a request for new carts (notice, incidentally, the specification that these should be the "latest model," furnished "with linen above and with tunimmu leather below"). In order to keep up a good standards, local authorities were informed on how to deal correctly with corn distribution. In no. 289 the writer (probably the state treasurer Ṭab-šar-Aššur) explains the rationale behind providing garrison troops with rations taken from the corn tax:
"I give it, so they can cultivate their fields. If I did not allot it, they would take [the corn] they have harvested [prev]iously and eat it, and would not cultivate the fields but turn to me [with]out a superior, saying: 'Bread [is being with]held from us!'" (obv. 8ff).
41 See in detail for this text L. Levine, "K. 4765+ —The Zamua Itinerary," (SAAB 3, 1989), pp. 75-92.
42 Cf. no. 16, royal confirmation of Itu'eans' exemption from straw and barley tax; no. 263, gift of house, plough and field to an archer.
Giovanni B. Lanfranchi
Giovanni B. Lanfranchi, 'Economic Development', The Correspondence of Sargon II, Part II: Letters from the Northern and Northeastern Provinces, SAA 5. Original publication: Helsinki, Helsinki University Press, 1990; online contents: SAAo/SAA05 Project, a sub-project of MOCCI, 2020 [http://oracc.org/saao/saa05/activitiesinborderprovinces/economicdevelopment/]