Capital Investment, Weight Standards and Overland Trade at Emar

This article analyses a selection of texts from Emar (modern Tell Meskene) in order to illuminate Late Bronze Age trade and financial activities run by private investors and travelling merchants in Northern Mesopotamia and the Levant. In the first part of the article, two cases of redemption of indebted merchants show how capital-lenders secured their investments through personal and real-estate guaranties. The second part of the article examines the various weight standards used by merchants in international trade activities, and shows how this metrological multiplicity is reflected in the figures recorded in the texts.