An investigation of the social position of the merchant at Nuzi, of his rôle in the spheres of trade and credit, and of the commercial procedures most commonly in use may be regarded as a useful contribution for a better understanding of the Nuzian economy. An analysis of this kind has not yet been undertaken, in spite of the wealth of textual material—in fact the trend of Nuzian studies has been mostly towards an elucidation of “juridical” problems, with the result that the field of exchange and trade has been disregarded. Significantly enough, all that we can recall are the two pages on the merchant, written by A. L. Oppenheim in 1939 and the essay of D. Cross, whose main concern was to establish a list of commodities and calculate their prices.
With the present investigation I intend to focus on the position of the merchant in the context of Nuzian society and economy, and to analyse the procedures in use for carrying out trade enterprises. Other aspects connected with the subject of trade, e.g. commodities, prices, provenience and destination of goods, etc., will be dealt with in forthcoming articles.