Security for Debt in Ancient Near Eastern Law (Culture and History of the Ancient Near East)

370 Pages·2001·13.34 MB·English

by  Richard Jasnow

SECURITY FOR DEBT IN
ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN LAW
CULTURE AND HISTORY OF
THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST
EDITED BY
B. HALPERN, M.H.E. WEIPPERT
TH. P.J. VAN DEN HOUT, I. WINTER
VOLUME 9
s
'6 8 ל י
SECURITY FOR DEBT IN ANCIENT
NEAR EASTERN LAW
EDITED BY
RAYMOND WESTBROOK
AND
RICHARD JASNOW
s
'6 8 ל י
BRILL
LEIDEN · BOSTON · KÖLN
2001
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is also available
Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnahme
Security for Debt in Ancient Near Eastern Law / ed. by Raymond Westbrook
and Richard Jasnow. - Leiden ; Boston ; Köln : Brill, 2001
(Culture and history of the ancient Near East ; Vol. 9)
ISBN 90-04-12124-2
ISSN 1566-2055
ISBN 90 04 12124 2
© Copyright 2001 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored
in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
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PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS
CONTENTS
Preface vii
RAYMOND WESTBROOK, Introduction 1
EDWARD TOMLINSON, Comparative Historical Perspectives 5
L Development of Creditors' Remedies in Medieval
England 6
II. Bankruptcy as a Creditor^ Remedy 9
III. Contemporary Security Devices 14
IV. Conclusion 30
RICHARD JASNOW, Pre-Demotic Pharaonic Sources 35
PIOTR STEINKELLER, The Ur III Period 47
Appendix 56
RAYMOND WESTBROOK, The Old Babylonian Period 63
I. Pledge 63
II. Suretyship 79
III. Joint Liability 83
IV. Distraint 84
KLAAS VEENHOF, The Old Assyrian Period 93
I. Introduction 93
II. Guarantee 104
III. Pledge 125
IV. Other Forms of Security 148
KATHLEEN ABRAHAM, The Middle Assyrian Period 161
I. Introduction 161
II. The Sources 162
III. Typology 166
IV. Guarantor and Joint Liability 171
V. Instruments of Security 174
VI. Maturity and Default 184
VII. Other Measures to Satisfy the Creditor 189
VII. A Socio-Economic Analysis of Middle Assyrian
Security 190
Appendices 199
CARLO ZACCAGNINI, Nuzi 223
AARON SKAIST, Emar 237
T1KVA FRYMER-KENSKY, Israel 251
I. Introduction 251
II. Secured Loans 252
III. Results of Delinquency 256
IV. Remediation 258
V. Conclusion 261
KAREN RADNER, The Neo-Assyrian Period 265
I. Prolegomena 265
II. Prior Arrangement 266
III. Delinquency 272
IV. Insolvency 276
JOACHIM OELSNER, The Neo-Babylonian Period 289
I. Introduction 289
II. Case Studies 292
III. Types of Security 299
Appendix 303
JOSEPH MANNING, Demotic Papyri 307
RAYMOND WESTBROOK, Conclusions 327
Indices 341
I. Sources 343
II. Terms 357
PREFACE
On March 19 and 20, 1999, the Society for the Study of Ancient
Near Eastern Law held its second occasional colloquium at the Johns
Hopkins University in Baltimore. Twelve papers on a single topic
were presented by invited speakers and intensively discussed by some
twenty-five participants. The speakers were drawn from different dis-
ciplines of the ancient Near East—Assyriology, Biblical Studies and
Egyptology—and beyond, to include early Rabbinic and modern
comparative law. The present volume comprises the edited confer-
ence papers, revised by their authors in the light of the conference
discussions, together with an introduction and conclusions. We are
grateful to the Israel Ministry of Justice for allowing one of their
senior officials, Dr. Peretz Segal, to participate in the conference.
Regrettably, Dr. Segal's onerous duties as a parliamentary draftsman
prevented him from producing a written version of his lecture on
early Rabbinic law.
The conference and resulting volume were made possible by the
generosity of the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation of New York, Mr.
Melvin Sykes of Baltimore, the University of Maryland School of
Law, and the office of the Dean of Arts and Sciences of the Johns
Hopkins University. The publication of this volume gives us a wel-
come opportunity to express our gratitude in public to them all.
We would like to thank Mr. Bruce Wells for his help in the prepa-
ration of the manuscript.
Raymond Westbrook and Richard Jasnow
Department of Near Eastern Studies, Johns Hopkins University

INTRODUCTION
Raymond Westbrook - Johns Hopkins University
There are certain problems which have existed since the very ear-
liest legal systems and which continue to defy the best efforts of the
law. An especially challenging set of such problems arises from the
repayment of debts, or rather, the failure to repay. No legal system
on earth can guarantee that payment will be made when it is due:
that depends ultimately on economics, not law. The task of the law
is to provide a framework within which legitimate expectations can
be fulfilled, in this case the creditor's that he will be paid whatever
can be paid. Even this modest goal, however, impinges upon a wide
circle of conflicting interests, which may paradoxically include those
of the creditor himself. All the wit and sophistication of modern legal
science, with all the support that modern technology has to offer,
still cannot reconcile them, nor provide a compromise that will set
them at rest. On the contrary, legal opinion sways hither and thither
like a clumsy gyroscope, as each new reform is perceived to have
tilted the balance too far in one direction. It is therefore a particu-
larly appropriate area in which to investigate the efforts of the ear-
liest known legal systems. The solutions that they developed are but
part of a continuum, a contribution to the ongoing debate that has
characterized legal policy up to the present day.
Four main interests may be identified to which any legal system
must have regard. The first, obviously, is that of the creditor. The
law is expected to provide the creditor not only with access to the
debtor's resources but also with protection from moral hazard—an
expectation in the debtor that repayment will not be enforced, lead-
ing to the temptation to borrow beyond his ability to repay. It would
seem at first sight that the greater the access and the greater the
deterrent from moral hazard, the more secure the creditor will be.
Too much security in law may, however, work against the creditor's
longer-term interests, if overly harsh measures rob the debtor of the
economic capacity to continue to generate resources from which the
debt can be paid, or if financially sound persons are deterred from
borrowing and the creditor is thus deprived of a profitable invest-
ment for his capital.