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It has been argued that the city elders constituted a certain institution of urban authorities in the Syro-Palestinian kingdoms in the Late Bronze Age, such as Alalaḫ, Ugarit and the Canaanite city-kingdoms of the Amarna period. While subordinate to the royal palace, as representatives of a city-community they were frequently involved in political, economic and legal affairs in the state administration. Now new sources on this issue have been provided from the eastern part of this region, i.e. Emar (Meskene-Qadime) on the Middle Euphrates.The recently published texts from Emar and its vicinity reveal that it was a kingdom under vassalage of the Hittite empire from the 13th to the early 12th century B.C. The Emar dynasty in this period has been reconstructed as having the following five reigning kings for four generations: Iasi-Dagan, dIM(Ba'lu/Adad)-kabar, Zū-Aštarti, Pilsu-Dagan and Elli. Besides the kings, the city elders of Emar were also involved in real estate sales, legal agreements and religious ceremonies.Their close association with the city god Ninurta in real estate sales is particularly noteworthy. They frequently sell houses, fields, etc., under their joint ownership. For example, Emar VI 126: 8–14 reads: “From Ninurta and the elders of Emar (dNIN.URTA ù LÙ.MEŠ.ši-bu-ut URU.e-mar.KI), the owners of the house, Ḫimaši-Dagan, son of Ilu-malik, has bought the house for 1,000 (shekels) of silver, the full price”. According to the stipulation concerning the payment of fines, one who should lay claim to the house is to pay 1,000 shekels of silver to “Ninurta” (1. 19) and the “city (URU.KI)” (1. 20), respectively. This suggests that the terms “elders” and “city” are interchangeable and thus it has been assumed that the elders were representatives of the city-community of Emar. On the other hand, it is interesting to note that, though only once, “Ninurta” is also paraphrased by the city of “Emar”.
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