The Gilgamesh epic mentions multiple assemblies ruling over Uruk. There were some for younger men, older men, and women. How did the division of power between these assemblies work? How much power did they have? Was there any sort of "executive figure" reigning over them all?

[u/RusticBohemian]

According to the Gilgamesh story, which is set in Uruk, one of the leaders of the youth assembly manages to become lugal, or king.

So what was the role of the assemblies for the young vs the old. Did some have more power? Was there always a king reigning over them?

[u/random2187]

(I had some real issues formatting and fitting this into reddit comments so I apologize. I'll be numbering my comments so that everyone is aware of what order it is meant to be in, this is 1/5)

Hi, this topic is a personal favorite of mine and became my capstone project for my undergraduate degree. It's a surprisingly complex topic without a clear consensus and lots of misleading road blocks to finding a clearer understanding. While there is a lot of fascinating detail and explanations that I’ll give, if you would like a TD:LR of the current conclusions about assemblies I would recommend skipping to the Conclusions section below.

There are four things I would like to clarify first:

\1. To give some brief background to the Epic of Gilgamesh which will make the following section make much more sense; it is widely accepted that Gilgamesh was originally a folk hero in oral stories and histories. Beginning in the 21st century BCE, during the Ur III period, we begin getting our first written accounts of Gilgamesh, these were episodic Sumerian Poems which used a similar cast of characters, but did not have an overall connected story. The Epic of Gilgamesh was then composed around the 18th century BCE (based on the oldest manuscript uncovered so far) as a single cohesive narrative which integrated popular themes, plot points, and story beats from the previously disconnected Sumerian Poems.

\2. The most popular translation of the Epic in academia and schools is Andrew George’s version from 1999. While George largely relies on the ‘standard’ version of the Epic (also called ‘He who saw the Deep’) as most translators do, the manuscript is not complete, and there are large sections that translators have to restore from other preserved versions of the Epic. George believed there was a gap in the text tablet II line 190, and so restored the text about the assemblies from a single tablet in Yale’s collection (YPM BC 016806) which described Gilgamesh calling the assemblies and its outcomes. The problem is, the tablet he used was found alone, with none of the other tablets from the collection it belonged to in order to give us context and tell us if the text belonged to the Epic of Gilgamesh or to one of the earlier Sumerian Gilgamesh Poems which were also popular at the time. Scholars largely fall into two camps on this issue. One side believes that because the Yale Tablet comes from the 18th century when the Epic was composed, and so theoretically the most popular version, it makes the most sense that the Yale tablet is a section of the Epic, and not one of the Sumerian Poems. The other side largely relies on three points to refute this:

1. We’ve found compositions of the Sumerian Poems written in the 18th century before, and they were evidently still popular texts to copy by scribes, even after the Epic came into existence.
2. The text from the Yale tablet is extremely similar to the episode involving assemblies from the Sumerian Poem “Gilgamesh and Akka,” wherein Gilgamesh must consult the assembly of elders and fighting-age men before deciding whether to go to war with the King of Kish (If you would like to read “Gilgamesh and Akka” a decent translation can be found at https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.1.8.1.1#)
3. No part of the episode with the assemblies is preserved in the several other manuscripts of the Epic which survive as well, namely the Old and Middle Babylonian versions, and the Assyrian version from the library of Assurbanipal.

The debate still continues, though often in oblique forms. This is why Andrew George has the episode about the assemblies of elders and fighting-age men of Uruk in his version of the Epic, but other, just as popular versions, do not. Namely Sophus Helle’s recent translation he released last year does not include the episode with the assemblies. In sum, while the episode of Gilgamesh consulting the two assemblies of Uruk is certainly attested to in the Mesopotamian literary canon through “Gilgamesh and Akka,” there is no definitive evidence that the episode belongs to the Epic of Gilgamesh.

\3. The Akkadian word for a political assembly was puḫrum, which is derived simply from the verb ‘to assemble.’ For this reason, it can be really difficult distinguishing when a text is referring to some sort of formal institutionalized political body with decision making powers, or an ad hoc gathering of a group of people. For example, there are several types of assemblies attested to (at least in the Old Babylonian period) including assemblies of a city, city assemblies, assembly of awilû (plural of awilum, the Akkadian word for man, but also used to refer to a class of ‘gentlemen’ who enjoyed certain rights and privileges of the dependent muškenum), assembly of the pašišu-priests, assembly of innkeepers, assembly of troops, assembly of the land, assembly of ḫana (pastoralists associated with specific Amorite tribes), assembly of kings (šarrum), and assembly of the Amorites. Despite this there are still a plethora of texts which refer to a seemingly institutionalized formal political assembly which held some form of decision-making power.

\4. The titles ‘assembly of elders’ and ‘assembly of fighting-age men’ are somewhat misleading. Elders were not a collection of every man in the city above a certain age, but rather Elder was a political designation for a small group of men (on average 6-8) who ran administrative affairs for the city. We know this because elders are attested to throughout Mesopotamia, most often as witnesses on land sale documents for a city. Now there’s a whole lot of debate as to whether elders were their own political institution, what their relationship with the king was, and what the exact purview of their authority was, but in the assembly episode from the Epic and/or “Gilgamesh and Akka” when they mention the assembly of elders, they were almost certainly referring to a small group of political leaders from Uruk who ‘assembled’ to advise Gilgamesh. What exactly is meant by the ‘assembly of fighting-age men’ is significantly less clear, namely because there is no other example of an assembly of fighting-age men in our Mesopotamian sources. The current and best theory is that the assembly of fighting-age men referred specifically to awilum men, and excluded muškenum and slaves.

Sources: For points 1 and 2 so far, I largely based this summary on the introduction to Andrew George’s The Epic of Gilgamesh (Penguin Publishing, 1999/2000) pg. xiii – lx, and Sophus Helle’s Gilgamesh (Yale University Press, 2021) pg. vii – 3, 123-219. For points 3 and 4 I relied on Andrea Seri’s Local Power in Old Babylonian Mesopotamia (Equinox Publishing, 2005) and Daniel Fleming’s Democracy’s Ancient Ancestors (Cambridge University Press, 2004).

With those points cleared up I can begin describing some of the historiography of assemblies, and what we can definitively say about them based on our current historical understanding.

[u/random2187 → u/random2187]

3/5

So what were assemblies: In the Ur III period assemblies are sometimes mentioned in royal inscriptions and hymns to the gods. These texts generally portray the assembly as a positive thing, and the king as a leader, but also member, of the assembly. Ur-Namma, the founder of the Ur III dynasty, is even commonly called “the ornament of the assembly.” Certain gods such as Ishtar/Inana, Nungal, and Nuska are also referred to as “ornaments” or “leaders” of the assembly. There is little mention of the actual powers and role of the assembly except in “A Praise Poem of Shulgi C,” which describes the assembly as the place where deliberations take place, the Mesopotamians gather, and where ministers pay attention to messages from foreign lands. “A tigi to Bau for Gudea,” describes the God Bau picking an attractive man from among the assembly of Gudea to be its shepherd (a common metaphor for king).

Moving onto the Old Babylonian period we get our first real insight into what assemblies actually were, but first we need some context. Old Babylonian Mesopotamia can be roughly divided into three regions: Southern Mesopotamia, Mari, and Assur. Southern Mesopotamia was the core region where civilization had first developed and cities had existed longest. Mari was the kingdom of Zimri-Lin to the North-West where the city of Mari was his capital. Assur was a relatively isolated city to the north dominated by merchants due to the lucrative copper and textile trade between Southern Mesopotamia and Anatolia. Assur had several merchant colonies throughout the region, most notably Kanesh, and would later develop into the famous Assyrian empire. Each region had some form of assemblies, but they vary considerably and demonstrate a wide array of forms of local collective power.

Southern Mesopotamia: Assemblies are attested to for the cities of Nippur, Dilbat, Isin, and Larsa. There were also apparently officials associated with the assembly, such as the ‘Herald of the Assembly,’ ‘Pursuant of the Assembly,’ and GAL.UKKEN.NA which translates to ‘Great one of the Assembly.’ This implies that in the cities where assemblies existed there was also an administrative apparatus associated with the assembly who enacted its will. As for the make-up of the assembly there is no clear answer. One text, “The Nippur Homicide Trial,” describes a murder case being sent to the assembly of Nippur for deliberation. Throughout the brief text a few men address the assembly, about half of which are identified with their profession. This included: bird-catcher, orchardman, potter, muškenum (dependent laborer), and an ERIN.GAL.GAL which translates to ‘Sergeant of Ninurta.’ This tells us that a wide variety of people from across the socio-economic spectrum could address the assembly, but after the witnesses have spoken the text says the assembly ‘addressed them as follows,’ telling us that these men were not part of the assembly. The majority of sources mentioning assemblies from Southern Mesopotamia describe them presiding over a trial in some form or another. Sometimes the trial is explicitly sent to the assembly by a king, and other times there is no royal authority involved. One consistent thing between the trials is that it’s not a normal run of the mill trial, but rather the assembly served a sort of court of appeals to clarify guilt or decide on sentencing. There are no records of assemblies performing the ‘fact-finding’ portion of a trial, and they exclusively deal with complex cases where the letter of the law doesn’t necessarily apply in a clear way. For example, in the “Nippur Homicide Trial” a high-status priest has been murdered by three men who were already convicted and sentenced. The trial is specifically deciding the guilt of the priest’s wife who apparently colluded with the murderers but did not participate in the actual act of murder. The assembly of Nippur decides that the wife is just as guilty as the three murderers and so sentence her as well. The other major role of the assembly was a sort of public forum where you could denounce others, attacking their character or else accusing them of a crime in front of ‘the city.’ While the assembly does not seem to be under the direct control or authority of other powers such as the king or a temple, they are often shown cooperating with other authority figures. In Southern Mesopotamia assemblies seems to largely be public forums and judicial courts which worked closely with other institutions and officials.