My paper seeks to outline current debates, problems, and open questions regarding the study of loans in Roman Egypt. Apart from the extensive analysis of legal issues, loans (or from the point of view of the borrowing side: debts) have for long been considered as indicators of economic precariousness and poverty of the debtors. In opposition, recent studies point out that loans are a genuine element of rational economic action for agriculturally organised societies, intended to bridge periods in which natural rhythms restrict the availability of grain, animals, or other goods and products. Beyond the scope of economical calculation, loan-contracts illuminate moreover strategies of property management and social relations between the signing parties: conflicts, dependencies, but also long term cooperation. Thus loan-contracts offer a path to economic network analysis (see e. g. Claytor, Litinas, Nabney 2016). Yet any approach to such network analysis must be preceded by a critical reexamination of the already existing dataset. Further-more, new sources must be taken into account, especially bilingual documents from the Fayum villages. In the end, the paper outlines possible perspectives towards a network analysis based on loan-contracts as sources.