Studying pre-Babylonian Mesopotamia, Thorkild Jacobsen used Sumerian epic, myth, and historical records to identify what he has called "primitive democracy". By this, Jacobsen means a government in which ultimate power rests with the mass of free (non-slave) male citizens, although "the various functions of government are as yet little specialised the power structure is loose". In early Sumer, kings like Gilgamesh did not hold the autocratic power that later Mesopotamian rulers wielded. Rather, major city-states functioned with councils of elders and "young men" (likely free men bearing arms) that possessed the final political authority, and had to be consulted on all major issues such as war.