"Kunuk ahhi" the seal of the brothers. Notes on the use of a collective seal at Ekalte during the Late Bronze age

Among the numerous legal tablets uncovered in sites from the middle Euphrates valley and dated to the Late Bronze age, nine documents from the town of Ekalte (Tall Munbaqa) bear a seal impression which is defined as kunuk aḫḫī, the seal of the “brothers”. The relevant role of collective civil bodies – assembly of elders and enlarged families or clans - in the socio-economic life of the main towns in the land of Aštata (Emar, Ekalte, Azŭ, Baṣīru), has been extensively studied, but the presence of a “collective seal” pertaining to the social group defined as “brothers” is attested only at Ekalte. This represents an interesting use of a seal related not to a single individual or function but to a defined group of people, usually summoned to witness different legal transaction related to family matters. Some reflection on its use and on the juridical value of sealing in the written corpus from the town will be analyzed.