Author(s):
Neumann, Hans (Berlin)
|
Schiemann, Gottfried (Tübingen)
|
Meissel, Franz-Stefan (Vienna)
[German version] A. Ancient Near East There is evidence of personal (corporal) liability through surety (especially standing surety for another, rarely for oneself) as a means of guaranteeing a contract in Mesopotamian cuneiform texts from the mid-3rd millennium BC [2. 253] into the Hellenistic period [3. 64-69], using different terminologies and in different forms. The
Gestellungsbürgschaft ('surety of appearance') was common (promise of the guarantor to deliver the debtor to the creditor for enforcement). In the late Babylonian (6th-4th cents. BC)
Stillesitzbürgschaft ('surety of immobility'), the guarantor stood surety for the debtor's remaining at the place of fulfilment. Distinct from these forms, and linked to them, there was also a guarantee of payment. If there were multiple debtors, the debtors were mutual guarantors of the total debt. Where a claim was made of the guarantor, he could in turn pursue the debtor [5. 73-86; 4. 25-57]. The form of the subsurety is attested from the 6th cent. BC [6]. The first textual evidence of the surety in Egypt dates only from the late 3rd cent. BC [9. 51f.; 10. 160-162]. Loan Neumann, Hans (Berlin) Bibliography
1 P. Koschaker, Babylonisch-assyrisches Bürgschaftsrecht, 1911
2 J. Krecher, in: ZA 63, 1973
3 U. Lewenton, Studien zur keilschriftlichen Rechtspraxis Babyloniens in hellenistischer Zeit, 1970
4 H. Petschow, Ein ne…