Early Dynastic period

Figure 7. SEM photomicrographs of the bone from the Early Dynastic period (ca. 4000 B.P.) found buried at Tel-Roba. Micrograph A shows typical poorly crystalline hydroxylapatite in the bone along the collagen fibers while B shows the magnification of a hexagonal prism of hydroxylapatite suggesting diagenetic...

Lead and galena were not plentiful in the early dynastic periods, but by the advent of the New Kingdom, circa 1580 B.c., the metal was fairly common the fishermen used it regularly for weighting the edges of their nets as is done at present. By the sixth century b.c. it was used on a much larger scale as, for example, in making water tanks. 

The picture, then, of Mardu in the inscriptions and archival texts is different than the history reconstructed from the letters. It is a picture of a group of people who are just like anyone else, except for the fact that they are not farmers just like anyone else, they are woven through the Mesopotamian world in most of the aspects evident to us in the texts starting with (as the table below shows) the Early Dynastic period, when people labeled Mardu receive rations at Shurrupak. They have various jobs (e.g., BucceUati 1966 17, 43, 340-44), ranging from the menial to the official, from the military to the cultic (e.g., the position of lamenter, for which more than one Mardu received rations). They receive food allotments and work assignments (e.g., BucceUati 1966 35). They even own fields (e.g., BucceUati 1966 45). 

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