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often employed by the palace administration and also by some pri-
vate households. There is no evidence that they were owners or
regular tenants of landed property. On the other hand, their pro-
fessional activities—often of medium to high level—are not a result
of a permanent status of personal dependence, at least as concerns
the palace sector: in fact, they are never labelled “servants of the
palace” (arad ekalli).^56- “Residents” (a““àbu). Whatever the etymological implications of the
term might have been, these people represented the lowest stratum
of the Nuzi “free” population. They held no title to real estate and
worked as agricultural dependants in palace (and also private) farms,
either permanently or on a seasonal basis.^57
4.3 Gender and Age
4.3.1 The corpus of private legal documents, combined with the
palace archival records, shows that the “persons” involved in the
Nuzi legal scenery were in the first place adult males, heads of fam-
ily households. Adult females could also play a comparable role, in
the (supervening) absence of a paterfamilias’ authority over them or,
vice-versa, by virtue of permanent or temporary legitimation granted
by express disposition, either inter vivosor post mortem (e.g., through
adoption, marriage agreement, testament). Although the legal pow-
ers enjoyed by women vary considerably in the documentation, over-
all they compare favorably with other societies of the ancient Near
East.4.3.1.1 As regards the private sector, the Nuzi documents show an
overall predominance of nuclear family units and attest to sporadic
traces of extended family groups. The palace bureaucratic organi-
zation disregards possible structural differences in the family units to
which individuals recruited as “subjects of corvée” (àlik ilki), “resi-
dents” (a““àbu), or “reservists(?)” (nakku““u) belonged. On the other
hand, large private households made extensive use of male and female
workers whose personal status as life-long retainers or serfs in most
cases implied a disintegration of their family units, whether they had
been nuclear or extended.(^56) Particularly interesting is the parallel with e¢elepeople at Alalakh, for which
cf. Serangeli, “Le liste di censo.. .,” 122–23; Zaccagnini, “Proprietà fondiaria.. .,”
705–6, and Dosch, Zur Struktur.. ., 77–80.
(^57) Cf. Zaccagnini, “Proprietà fondiaria.. .,” 707–9; Dosch, Zur Struktur.. ., 85–87.
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