7.4 Typology
7.4.1 The core contracts that are found in any modern legal sys-
tem are present in the ancient Near East: sale, hire, deposit, loan,
pledge, suretyship, and partnership. Exchange of land follows the
pattern of land sale; barter of goods is rarely attested. (Individual
chapters should be consulted for the specific terms of contracts, which
vary from system to system.)7.4.2 There were contracts that are not found in modern legal
systems:- Contracts ancillary to status, for example, marriage, adoption, and
slavery. Such contracts interfere far more profoundly with the rules
of status than would be conceivable in modern law. For example,
penalty clauses in a marriage contract could effectively block a
spouse’s right to divorce. - Contracts between criminal and victim (or their families) arranging
a substitute penalty for a crime. Thus, a Neo-Assyrian contract
arranged for the transfer of slaves in payment of the criminal’s
blood-debt—his liability for murder—which would otherwise have
been payable with his life (ADD 321 = SAA 14 125). - A contract for a prostitute’s services was legally binding, even if the
profession was not altogether socially respectable. In Genesis 34,
Judah even leaves a pledge for payment with a woman whom he
supposes to be a prostitute. - In Egypt, a person might make a contract with a mortuary priest
for the provision of cult offerings after his death, in return for an
endowment of land.
7.5 Terms
7.5.1 The law codes have relatively few provisions regarding con-
tract. Most of them insert implied terms into standard contracts.
Some of those terms are in fact found expressed in contractual doc-
uments themselves, such as the liability of the seller of a slave for
epilepsy. Most terms were undoubtedly customary law, even if not
recorded in detail in the contractual document, such as the tarifffor
damage to parts of a rented ox (LOx). The most intrusive form of
implied term is the tariffs of prices for goods and services, which
are found in LE, LH, and HL. A few provisions deal with alloca-
tion of risk if the contract is frustrated, for example, if a crop is
destroyed by a natural disaster (LH 45), others with penalties for
breach by negligence or fraud (e.g., HL 149: fraudulent declaration
that a slave died before delivery).68
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