Creditors and Private Loans in Presargonic Sumer

Abstract This study argues that the creditors of Presargonic loan notes granted credits privately from their personal capital. According to their occupations, private Presargonic creditors were not specialized in administrating the primary loaned material, barley. Often, they were active in an occupation that already encompassed entrepreneurship. They operated their credit business as one pillar of their overall asset management, like their Ur III counterparts. Private Presargonic creditors also granted metal loans in silver or copper as debt-financed investment capital, the opposite of short-term institutional barley loans, which were utilized to ease their workers’ economic distress. Generally, private creditors of the third millennium invested in various assets, were wealthy, and were accustomed to managing materials, intangible liabilities, and staff through daily practice.