meant the local council. The evidence is most striking in the case
of Assur of the Old Assyrian period but can be seen elsewhere, for
example, in Middle Kingdom Egypt, where the town had its own
bureau and scribe and where property was in the hands of the
“town.”2.3.3.2 The local authority was responsible for a wide range of
local matters, both as an administrative and a judicial body, but had
also to enforce central government orders, for example, with regard
to taxation and corvée. Local officials were subject to the rule of
law, as the corruption trial of Ku““iharbe, mayor of Nuzi, graphi-
cally illustrates. A series of individuals accused Ku““iharbe and his
associates of crimes against the central government and against local
citizens: misappropriating crown property, taxes, and corvée labor,
taking bribes, misappropriating private property, intimidation, and
even sexual harassment.2.3.4 Autonomous Organizations
2.3.4.1 In most periods the temples were independent economic
units and were autonomous or semi-autonomous entities within the
state, in that they generally had jurisdiction over their internal affairs.
Sometimes they constituted a branch of the government, function-
ing within or alongside the royal administration. In the New Kingdom
and in the Neo-Babylonian period, for example, the functions of
temple and royal officials could overlap.2.3.4.2 In Mesopotamia, merchants’ associations (kàrù) had juris-
diction over their members and over transactions between them (i.e.,
wholesale trade). In Anatolia of the early second millennium, they
were the governing bodies of autonomous Assyrian trading colonies
within the local kingdoms, with whose rulers they negotiated a spe-
cial status by treaty.2.3.5 The Courts
As with the administration, there were central, provincial, and local
courts. A court could be constituted by an official sitting alone; by
an administrative body, such as a local council, temple, or mer-
chants’ association exercising judicial functions, or by persons desig-
nated solely as judges, who usually sat as a college. 29
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