(M236) 2. *Scribes.*—The scribe exercised his craft as a profession. One often meets with a scribe, _tupšarru_, acting in a private capacity, as party to a suit, or as witness. He retains the title even when the deed is drawn up by another writer. The class was very numerous. Almost every document is drawn up by a fresh scribe, so far as the scribe’s name is recorded, for he often omits his title. Generally he is the last of the witnesses, but not always so. (M237) He wrote the whole of the document, including the names of the witnesses. There is no evidence that anyone else ever wrote a word on the document. As a rule, even when the names of the fathers of the witnesses are given, the scribe is content to write only his title after his name. Hence we have no evidence whether the office was hereditary or not. (M238) Women certainly were scribes. Out of a total of ninety names of scribes known, at least ten were women. Here a difficulty arises from the way in which women’s names occur. At this period proper names are usually written without the determinative which marks sex. Nor do the names decide, for both men and women bore the same name. Thus Taribatum is the name of two men and also of two women. Only when the title _tupšarru_ is given, is the feminine determinative prefixed to that. We have, however, ten clear examples. In the later times the scribe usually was a man, but female scribes are known.(90) The Aramaic scribe is often named, also the Egyptian. The scribe usually “held” the agreement, which probably means that the parties were willing to leave it in his safe-keeping. (M239) The scribe was not a judge. It may be true that he sometimes acted as judge or became one, but then the higher office overshadowed the lower. He was no longer scribe but judge. A judge may sometimes have written down his legal decision and so acted as scribe, but we have no evidence of such a case. The judge seems never to have dispensed with the services of the scribe.