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7.2 Loan^131
The documents record loans of silver or commodities with repay-
ment of an equivalent value. Loans of items to be returned were
not regarded as worthy of record. “Merchant” (tamkàrum) was syn-
onymous with moneylender.7.2.1 Terms^132
The basic format “A. has received (Sum. “u ba.an.ti) silver/grain/etc.
from B.” was sufficient to document a loan. The transaction can be
identified as a loan from the repayment clause or from a technical
term defining the type of loan. The main types of loan in this period
were the following:^133¢ubullum(Sum. ur 5 .ra) was the standard, interest-bearing loan of silver
or grain, already known from the previous period.qìptum(“u.lá) had no interest recorded in the document, but appar-
ently interest was charged (as the occasional note “does not bear inter-
est” attests), perhaps in a separate contract. It could function as much
as a contract of deposit (of fungibles) and was often received by a mid-
dleman (LH 107; BE 6/1 103 = UAZP 273). Possibly the purpose
was to provide a fund from which further loans could be made.¢ubuttàtum(e“.dé.a) also had no interest recorded. There is no evidence
to substantiate the view that the interest was discounted in advance.ana ze/za-ra-niwas a loan of agricultural produce, usually to be repaid
in the same kind at harvest time.na“pakùtumwas a loan of grain connected with storage. Its exact pur-
pose is not known.melqètum figures prominently in AS but is rare in private documents.^134
It may be a more general term covering several of the above types.tadmiqtumwas a loan for investment, whereby the borrower was expected
to add value to the object of investment.(^131) Skaist, Loan Contract...
(^132) Ibid., 33–97.
(^133) Skaist excludes two transactions, which involved credit but were not loans: (i)
silver given ana“ám (“for the value of ”) was either prepayment for partial purchase
(see 7.1.2.2) or consignment to an agent to purchase goods for a principal; (ii) a
commodity was evaluated in terms of (“ám) another commodity when the palace
supplied it to a dealer for marketing, for payment after the dealer had sold the
goods.
(^134) Edzard, Tell-ed-Der 134:19: barley “for silver and melqètum.”
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