6, 123:7£), but may also omit the verb, saying to his debtor: "You

sibility towards me for the debt?" (ana χ silver. . . . tazzazzam). CCTMMA 1, 84 12ff. mentions a debt-note for 10 pounds of silver due to tamkārum together with one stating "that A. will stand for me: for this debt," apparently a separate record recording that A. accepts liability for the debt, perhaps a guarantor. The verb is also used in the causative stem, with the debtor as subject and the guarantor as

fail to bring the debtor back" (to the creditor). The same verb, without mention of a guarantor, occurs in EL 254:1-10, where the son of C seizes D, when the latter is about to leave for Assur, saying: "Appoint for me/provide me (sazzizam) somebody who, when your term expires, will pay me cash the 5 pounds of silver belonging to E."34 The verb lias a somewhat different meaning when used with the preposition warki, "behind," as attested in KKS 5. Here D, whose

to the countryside shall provide to him" (ušazzassum) somebody to take over his reponsibility.

"stand" behind me?" (suhāram warkia tušazziz')• When C answers: "You

pay your silver." Making a boy (servant) "stand behind the debtor"35 clearly is a security measure, taken by the creditor, in order to prevent the debtor from leaving without paying. In this use of the verb izēzum "to stand for" and its derivatives the notions of pledging and guaranteeing meet, as is clear from the Old Babylonian mazzazānum, "pledge."36

The noun derived from this causative stem, šazzuztum, well known with the meaning "representative," is also used for the guarantor, in AKT 3, 8:8ff.: "The silver which A. owes to the kārum and for which I am the sazzuztum—I have indeed paid that silver out of my own funds." This is hardly surprising since being a guarantor is a specific way of representing, acting for another person.

1.3. apālum

Finally we mention the verb apālum, usually translated by "to answer," but in the Old Assyrian commercial contexts frequently "to answer for" in the sense of "to accept responsibility for." In EL 186 (accord-

debtor had "to provide to the creditor" (sazzizam, line 5), in order to pay him the silver due when his term had expired, declare "we guaranteed for him" (nēpulšu). In EL 186 and 254 the term "guarantor" is not used and hence it is not clear whether the persons "answering fori' the debtors had indeed been registered as guarantors in the debt-notes. One gets the impression that they only got involved when the due date approached and the creditors had doubts about the availability or solvency of their debtor. This may also have been the case in EL 238, where the the duty of the person desig-