By Charles Halton on Thursday, 1 September 2005 at 8:54 pm
The term hubuttatatum does not mean interest free loan. Instead it indicates a loan that includes the interest payment in the “principle†amount to be paid back. Further charges of interest are prohibited. “The prohibition of interest that is inherent in the hubuttu promissory notes from the Neo-Babylonian period enjoins the creditor only from attempting to impose a second interest charge. It does not prevent him from increasing to a profitable level the original amount that is the focus of the preliminary negotiations carried out prior to the composition of the extant promissory note. Consequently, ‘interest-free’ does not necessarily mean ‘profit-free’†(194).
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Category: Akkadian Language,Ancient Capital Markets,History of the ANE
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