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legal matters. The number of witnesses does not seem to have been
systematically fixed; as few as three and as many as eleven are
attested. However, four is by far the most common number, which
roughly fits with the number of nobles required to compose local
courts in the cases stipulated in the international treaties.
We have no documents from this period describing disputes between
inhabitants of Alalakh. In one document (AT 17), mention is made
of a crime (arnu) that carried the death penalty of the evildoer (bèl
masikti), in all likelihood decided by King Niqmepa. The text only
mentions the incident without specifying the nature of the crime,
basically because its purpose is to record the accompanying confiscation
of the property of the executed criminal by the palace and the ensu-
ing claim of his daughter’s groom, who asks for the return of what
he had brought into his father-in-law’s house, now in the king’s pos-
session. The only reference to the functioning of a tribunal comes
from a diplomatic letter (AT 116). The addressor sends to the
addressee (whose name is not well preserved but who must have
been responsible for judicial affairs at Alalakh) his servant together
with his case (di.ku 5 /dìnu), namely, the seizure of his donkeys, so that
the addressee can carefully evaluate the testimony and settle the
affair.3.Litigation
Although there are no records of litigation, certain clauses in inter-
national treaties are of interest in that they allow foreign litigants
access to the Alalakh courts. The first concerns the ownership of a
man, woman, ox, donkey, or horse.^28 The text, unfortunately dam-
aged, states that if the defendant, namely the man in whose pos-
session it was found, can produce the merchant who sold it to him
then he can go free. If he cannot produce the merchant (or possi-
bly other evidence to prove that he acquired it in good faith), then
an oath will be imposed on him.
Another clause in the treaty places the responsibility on the local
authorities to return a fugitive slave to his foreign owner.^29 The mayor
and five elders must swear an oath that the slave is not concealed(^28) AT 2:32–37. For the most recent treatment of the treaty, see Dietrich-Loretz,
“Der Vertrag zwischen Ir-Addu...”
(^29) AT 2:21–31 and AT 3:36–39.
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