Interest payment procedures applied by Assyrian merchants during the first quarter of the second millennium B.C. in Anatolia

Abstract

Among the thousands of documents found during the excavation of the Kültepe Kanis karum (settlement or commercial colony) there are also promissory notes, letters, trial minutes etc. of Assyrian merchants, who settled in the main cities of Anatolia beginning from the early second millennium B.C. These Assyrian merchants established a credit system that they applied to the transactions among themselves and to those with the local population. When they sold the local population products like tin and cloth, which they had imported from Assyria, they also offered credit facilities and charged interest rates that were a function of the term. In the same way, they added interest rates depending on the term, to all credit transactions among themselves and if the debit was not extinguished at its due date the interest was summed to the main sum and interest was charged on this new amount of debt. From these documents we notice that interest was calculated on a monthly basis. While the interest charged to the local population was rather high, the interest on transactions among themselves could not exceed the 30 % annual rate established by the karum administration. We also see that some Assyrians, who must have been bankers or usurers, provided short-term credit facilities at low interest rates. Promissory notes found at the second level of the Kanis karum during the Kültepe excavations encompass the period beginning from the fifth year of the reign of the Assyrian king Sarrukan, including the reign of king Puzur-Assur and ending in the thirtieth year of the reign of king Naram-Suen (1920-1840 B.C.) A table has been compiled that shows the amounts of credit provided by Assyrian merchants active in Anatolia during the reigns of these kings, the interest rates charged by them, debit-credit amounts and terms, on a monthly and yearly basis. We see that the levels of interest rates change according to the months, the years and the individuals who provided the credit facilities. In this article I have tried to draw the portrait of an 80- year period, by comparing the limum lists found at Kültepe with these promissory notes.