drawn with extreme caution. The reason could be that the relevant
obligations became implied in the standard contract or that the oath
was so self-evident that it did not need to be recorded. Even in the
third millennium, when mention of the oath is frequent, it is not
consistent. In the contract of suretyship, for example, the oath is
recorded often enough to suggest that it was the basis of the surety’s
obligation to the creditor. Its occasional omission would therefore be
attributable to brevity, not substance. Does its total omission from
suretyship documents of the second millennium then mean that the
oath was no longer the basis of the obligation or that it did not
need any mention, being the sole basis?7.3.4 A major difficulty is that use of the oath, in contractual and
non-contractual situations, was often strictly speaking superfluous: it
was used as an extra precaution where an obligation already existed
on some other basis, for example, vassal status, citizenship, or even
slavery. The reason is that it secured an extra level of sanctions,
royal or divine. Only in fully executory situations like the betrothal
contract and the treaty could it be argued that the oath was indis-
pensable. On the other hand, if an oath not to contest an executed
agreement in the future were regarded as indispensable, then the
oath would be the only possible means of making an agreement into
a binding contract. A slave already transferred and paid for would
not be acquired unless and until the oath not to renege had been
taken by one or perhaps both parties.7.3.5 A further complication that may affect the credibility of the
evidence is the possibility that the oral transactions recorded may
sometimes have been fictitious. Occasionally, payments are recorded
which external evidence shows not to have been received, or state-
ment of completed performance on the envelope is contradicted by
a requirement of future performance on the inner tablet. Even loans
may be fictitious, masking some bookkeeping transaction (e.g., Middle
Assyrian KAJ 66). While the principle of the oral contract was upheld,
its role was usurped by the document, which became virtually a
mode of creating contracts in its own right. Although rare (as far as
we can tell), the fictitious document provided a conceptual stepping-
stone to acceptance of a dispositive written contract. But could a
solemn oath be taken as read? 67
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