ABBREVIATIONS

APPENDICES A־G

On a more general level, it can be noted in passing that, according to ancient Roman doctrine, which is still largely shared by modem Western juridical thought, security for debt is of two kinds: real (i.e. property) and personal (i.e. obligations). The former include pledge (pignus), hypothecary pledge (hypotlieca) and antichresis; the latter include the surety (fideiussio).3 However, this schematic arrangement should only be considered as an approximate attempt to compare similar but not identical juridical institutions and legal systems, whose respective historical backgrounds and developments are to a considerable extent independent of one another. It goes without saying that more serious problems are encountered in the study of the ancient Near Eastern evidence. It therefore seems advisable to analyse and evaluate the relevant documentation by concentrating on its substantial content without forcing it into inadequate schemes of interpretation.

The rich corpus of Nuzi loan contracts {hubullu) has been sufficiently investigated (cf. Owen 1970; Wilhelm 1992: esp. 9 - 23 with the comments of Zaccagnini 1997) and the basic features of this type of legal transaction have been ascertained. Individual or multiple loans, with or without interest, could be secured by one or more sureties, i.e. persons who guaranteed fulfilment of the debtors obligation in its entirety. Movables or real estate are not attested as security in hubullu- contracts; on the other hand, they occur in another type of Nuzi contract (the tuppi tidennūti) which, at least on a formulaic level, is patterned on the scheme of antichretic arrangements. Some features of these contracts that are relevant to the present discussion will be dealt with below.

According to the terminology of the Nuzi loan contracts (hubullu), the person(s) who assume obligation to stand surety for the full repayment of a debt are qualified māhis pūti (lit.: "striker of the forehead"). Whatever interpretation might be envisaged for this technical term,4 it is important to point out the distinctive features that characterize

1990—presumably a short résumé of his dissertation—represents a first provisional attempt to single out and evaluate the basic economic features of this type of Nuzi transaction. Besides total disregard of the previous Literature, the author's methodology and reasoning are not entirely convincing.

the functional role of the māhis pūti? Save for a very few exceptions, sureties only occur in multiple loans in which every single co-debtor assumes full liability to the creditor: the standard formulation of the

many loan documents exhibit a further suretyship clause, whereby one or two co-debtors act as māhis pūti (note the variant writing MA.U) for the fulfilment of the obligation.6 It is not entirely clear what the exact function of these additional sureties might have been, given that the documents in any case foresee the full mutual responsibility of each debtor for the entire group of co-debtors: all that can

specifically, by one or two of them as additional and final surety for fulfilment of the obligation.7

As mentioned before, individual loans, as a rule, were not secured

5 Note that the Nuzi documents attest to the sporadic occurrence of suretyship

neo-Assyrian occurrences of the verb karāmu, as attested in non-juridical documents

1 Wilhelm's suggestion (Wilhelm 1992:18) that the function of these sureties, selected from the group of co-debtors, was "die Exekutionsbereitschaft aller Schuldner zu garantieren und dem Gläubiger den säumigen Schuldner [itafics mine] auzuliefem" is not convincing.

some detail (Zaccagnini 1977: esp. 180-188), it is not necessary to comment again on this matter.

Another type of debt agreement, widely attested in Nuzi private archives, concerns loans of various amounts of different commodi-

tal sum and in compensation for accruing interest, persons or land

In the unique legal terminology of the Nuzi documents, these agreements are labelled as tuppi tidennūti and the security itself is termed tidennu.I0 In spite of the still unclear etymological explanation of the term, the substance of these contracts has been sufficiently elucidated, on the basis of an internal analysis of the Nuzi textual evidence and by comparison with analogous Near Eastern sources." Broadly speaking, the tidennūtu contracts can be interpreted as loans secured by 1) individuals, including the debtor himself, or by 2)

As was intimated above, the personal and real estate tidennūtu contracts only apparently correspond to "classical" antichresis, for reasons that need not be repeated. Suffice it to say that, despite the apparently strict similarity between the formulaic patterning of Nuzi tidennūtu and ancient or modern antichretic obligations, the former agreements de facto represent a form of alienation of persons or land to third parties, in compensation for an outstanding obligation. This substantial aspect of the tidennūtu contracts is clearly revealed by those instances in which the agreed duration of the "antichretic" arrange-

10 This term exclusively concerns persons: I only know of two occurences in which tidennu refers to fields: HSS XIII 171: 1-2 and HSS V 66: 8 (cf. AHw, p.

which to my knowledge has never been duly appreciated, for any inquiry concerning the vexed question of the nature, functions and possible relationships of the

his work obligation, PN shall give back the 30 minas of copper and then go free. After the usual penalty clause imposing a payment of one mina of copper for each day of absence from work, the contract adds that PN3 stands surety for PN and for (repayment of) the

[note the inversion of the sequence as between the main debtor and the surety] violate the agreement, they [i.e. each of them, individu-

ers—one of whom (= PN2) is to stay in the creditor's house for four

the standard amount of the fine is one mina of copper per day. Two

of these transactions. The first object of the suretyship always concerns the regular and uninterrupted performance of the tidennu's work.

what might have been the reasons that induced the contracting parties to include these additional suretyship clauses: we can only surmise that the particular backgrounds of these agreements, albeit

and subsequent refusal to take an evidentiary oath, P N 2 lost the case and was condemned to pay a fine of one ox for having thrown PN in jail (?). The evidence of the above court procedure is indeed remarkable and would require extensive comment; I shall only draw attention to two points. First, and most important, the ambivalence—or, in other terms, the semantic extension—of the technical term hubullu (line 5: habālu D stative; line 10: amēl hubulli), which unquestionably refers both to the original debtor's obligation and to the accessory personal security provided by the surety; in the second place, the unique occurrence in the Nuzi texts of imprisonment

I hope that the above synthetic sketch of the complex and still partly obscure topic of security for debt, as resulting from the rich evidence of Nuzi private archives, can represent a useful starting point for future research and discussion, also in a wider historical perspective which should include the Northern Mesopotamian and Syrian documentary corpora of the Late Bronze Age.