Jurisdiction in the UrIII Lagaš

Abstract

The UrIII dynasty can be characterized as a highly centralized bureaucratic state. A number of studies of trial documents (diti-la's) have focused on the reconstruction of the UrIII society, studying personal status, family, property, inheritance and so on. Yet surprisingly little has been written about the change of jurisdiction from the local power at Lagas to the royal power of Ur. Through analyzing the prosopography of ‘judges’ (di-ku5) mentioned in the UrIII ditilla's, this paper explains the process by which jurisdiction of courtcases in Lagas was transferred from the local power to the royal power. The first appearance of the word di-ku5 is in the year Amar-Suen 4. This is probably connected with the fact that the local administrative system of Lagas had been radically changed in the year Amar-Suen 3 by royal intervention. In other words, the appearance of di-ku5's seems to be connected with royal power. However, upon investigating the prosopogtaphy of the di-ku5's, one finds that some di-ku5's belong to the royal power, and others belong to the local power. Therefore, in the year Amar-Suen 4 jurisdiction of Lagas was not yet completely controlled by the UrIII court. The confrontation between the royal power and the local power was settled in the year Amar-Suen 7, when Ir-Nanna, who was chancellor of the UrIII state (sukkal-mah), was installed as governor (ensi2) of Lagas. After the year Amar-Suen 7, jurisdiction in Lagas was systematically controlled by the UrIII dynasty.