A History of Ancient Near Eastern Law

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the central administration had numerous dignitaries who reported

directly to the king: the qèpuwas mainly responsible for overseeing

government transactions and supervising the governors, who had to

account to him for their local administration, while the vizier (sukkallu)

and grand vizier (sukkallu rabiu) had military, civil, and judicial func-

tions. The latter played a decisive political role, as is shown by the

example of A““ur-iddin, who held this office at Dùr-katlimmu for

several years in the reign of Tukulti-Ninurta I and was responsible

for the administrative organization of the new conquests in the West.

Finally, the “mayor of the palace” (rab ekalli) ran the staffand build-

ings of the palace. The royal administration included many eunuchs

(“a rè“i) who held high office, especially in the harem.^12

2.1.1.2 The economically powerful great families maintained close

relations with the political powers and held high office in the admin-

istration.^13 Some of their members were chosen as eponyms (limmu)

for dating documents. Their archives show that they entrusted the

management of public and private business to their own household

staff, while keeping the two spheres separate. Officers make contracts

with individuals whereby they receive “gratuities” (“ulmànu, lit. “pre-

sents”) in the form of animals, barley, metal or persons, in remuner-

ation for their work or their intervention in a difficult case.^14

2.1.2 Administrative acts often take the form of private legal trans-

actions, especially by use of debt notes, which are attested solely in

the context of public affairs. Seed or animals, sometimes men, are

provided by the central administration to an individual in anticipa-

tion of a specific delivery which, once made, extinguishes the debt.

The debtor may then “break his tablet” (†uppa“u ¢epû).^15 Apart from

this characteristic clause, administrative documents are unwitnessed

and are drafted “to the debit of ” (“a qàt) the supplier. The state, or

(^12) Grayson, “Eunuchs...”
(^13) Postgate, Archive of Urad-”erùa.. ., xxiii–xxv, and “Structure.. .,” 202; for the
commercial activities of Bàbu-a¢a-iddina, high official of Shalmaneser I, cf. KAV
98 and Freydank and Saporetti, “Texte.. .,” and Donbaz, “Archive...”
(^14) Finkelstein, “”ulmànu.. .”; David and Ebeling, ARU, nos.84–93.
(^15) Koschaker, Neue keilschriftliche.. ., 137–145; David and Ebeling, ARU, nos. 78,
81; Freydank, “Archiv...”
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