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2.1.3.1 The King
As elsewhere in the ancient Near East, the king, in his capacity as
judge, functioned at the highest level of court procedure. Although
the evidence in our possession is relatively meager, it is beyond doubt
that the final decision lay with the king of Arraphe in cases sub-
mitted to him by litigants and in appeals against previous decisions
by ordinary judges. We do not know how frequent such appeals
were. Note also the king’s role in deciding the fate of people who
were declared guilty but did not drown at the end of a river ordeal
(HSS 9 7: 23–26; HSS 13 422: 32–38).2.1.3.2 The Judges
Civil and criminal lawsuits of all kinds were tried before one or more
judges (Sum. DI.KU 5 = Akk. dajànu), sitting as a college. A variety
of people, including “king’s sons,” acted as judges, but we do not
have any specific evidence suggesting a privileged connection between
membership of the royal house and appointment to the office of
judge.
It is reasonable to suppose that the judges were part of the gov-
ernmental machinery of justice, even if we lack evidence attesting to
their enrolment in the ranks of the palace bureaucracy—judges are
never mentioned in the documents of the palace archives. On the
other hand, the recurring qualification “judges of the city GN” sug-
gests a functional and probably permanent connection between the
judges’ office and territorial spheres of jurisdiction, centered on major
Arraphean towns and related rural districts. It is therefore quite con-
ceivable that the various courts were composed of local (senior) rep-
resentatives of the city or village communities, acting as delegates
for the settlement of legal disputes and judicial matters. The high
number of judges revealed by a comprehensive survey of the Nuzi
documents related to trials and court procedures strongly suggests
that they did not belong to the ranks of (permanent) palace officials.^13
The limits of the judges’ autonomy vis-à-vis the king —as supreme
judicial authority—is still largely unknown: a functional and proce-
dural link was, however, ensured through the intermediary of vari-
ous administrative officials such as “mayors” (¢azannu), “viziers”
(sukkallu), and “governors” (“akin màti/“aknu).(^13) Ibid., 245–56.
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