The Code of Ur-Nammu is the oldest known

law code A code of law, also called a law code or legal code, is a systematic collection of statutes. It is a type of legislation that purports to exhaustively cover a complete system of laws or a particular area of law as it existed at the time the cod ...

surviving today. It is from Mesopotamia and is written on tablets, in the

Sumerian language Sumerian is the language of ancient Sumer. It is one of the oldest attested languages, dating back to at least 3000 BC. It is accepted to be a local language isolate and to have been spoken in ancient Mesopotamia, in the area that is modern-day ...

c. 2100–2050 BCE.

Discovery

The first copy of the code, in two fragments found at

Nippur Nippur ( Sumerian: ''Nibru'', often logographically recorded as , EN.LÍLKI, "Enlil City;"The Cambridge Ancient History: Prolegomena & Prehistory': Vol. 1, Part 1. Accessed 15 Dec 2010. Akkadian: ''Nibbur'') was an ancient Sumerian city. It was ...

, in what is now Iraq, was translated by

Samuel Kramer Samuel Noah Kramer (September 28, 1897 – November 26, 1990) was one of the world's leading Assyriology, Assyriologists, an expert in Sumer, Sumerian history and Sumerian language. After high school, he attended Temple University, before Dropsie ...

in 1952. These fragments are held at the

Istanbul Archaeological Museums The Istanbul Archaeology Museums ( tr, ) are a group of three archaeological museums located in the Eminönü quarter of Istanbul, Turkey, near Gülhane Park and Topkapı Palace. The Istanbul Archaeology Museums consists of three museums: #Arc ...

. Owing to its partial preservation, only the prologue and five of the laws were discernible.Kramer, ''History begins at Sumer'', pp. 52–55. Kramer noted that luck was involved in the discovery: Further tablets were found in Ur and translated in 1965, allowing some 30 of the 57 laws to be reconstructed. Another copy found in

Sippar Sippar ( Sumerian: , Zimbir) was an ancient Near Eastern Sumerian and later Babylonian city on the east bank of the Euphrates river. Its '' tell'' is located at the site of modern Tell Abu Habbah near Yusufiyah in Iraq's Baghdad Governorate, som ...

contains slight variants.

Background

The preface directly credits the laws to king

Ur-Nammu Ur-Nammu (or Ur-Namma, Ur-Engur, Ur-Gur, Sumerian: , ruled c. 2112 BC – 2094 BC middle chronology, or possibly c. 2048–2030 BC short chronology) founded the Sumerian Third Dynasty of Ur, in southern Mesopotamia, following several centuries ...

of Ur (2112–2095 BCE). The author who had the laws written onto cuneiform tablets is still somewhat under dispute. Some scholars have attributed it to Ur-Nammu's son

Shulgi Shulgi ( dŠulgi, formerly read as Dungi) of Ur was the second king of the Third Dynasty of Ur. He reigned for 48 years, from c. 2094 – c. 2046 BC (Middle Chronology) or possibly c. 2030 – 1982 BC (Short Chronology). His accomplishme ...

. Although it is known that earlier law-codes existed, such as the Code of

Urukagina Uru-ka-gina, Uru-inim-gina, or Iri-ka-gina ( sux, ; 24th century BC, middle chronology) was King of the city-states of Lagash and Girsu in Mesopotamia, and the last ruler of the 1st Dynasty of Lagash. He assumed the title of king, claiming to ...

, this represents the earliest extant legal text. It is three centuries older than the

Code of Hammurabi The Code of Hammurabi is a Babylonian legal text composed 1755–1750 BC. It is the longest, best-organised, and best-preserved legal text from the ancient Near East. It is written in the Old Babylonian dialect of Akkadian, purportedly by Hamm ...

. The laws are arranged in

casuistic In ethics, casuistry ( ) is a process of reasoning that seeks to resolve moral problems by extracting or extending theoretical rules from a particular case, and reapplying those rules to new instances. This method occurs in applied ethics and ...

form of IF (crime) THEN (punishment)—a pattern followed in nearly all later codes. It institutes fines of monetary compensation for bodily damage as opposed to the later ''

lex talionis "An eye for an eye" ( hbo, עַיִן תַּחַת עַיִן, ) is a commandment found in the Book of Exodus 21:23–27 expressing the principle of reciprocal justice measure for measure. The principle exists also in Babylonian law. In Roman c ...

'' ('eye for an eye') principle of Babylonian law. However,

murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person without justification or excuse, especially the ...

robbery Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take anything of value by force, threat of force, or by use of fear. According to common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the perso ...

adultery Adultery (from Latin ''adulterium'') is extramarital sex that is considered objectionable on social, religious, moral, or legal grounds. Although the sexual activities that constitute adultery vary, as well as the social, religious, and legal ...

and

rape Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ...

were capital offenses. The code reveals a glimpse at societal structure during Ur's Third Dynasty. Beneath the ''

lugal Lugal ( Sumerian: ) is the Sumerian term for "king, ruler". Literally, the term means "big man." In Sumerian, ''lu'' "𒇽" is "man" and ''gal'' " 𒃲" is "great," or "big." It was one of several Sumerian titles that a ruler of a city-state coul ...

'' ("great man" or king), all members of society belonged to one of two basic strata: the ''lu'' or free person, or the slave (male, ''arad''; female ''geme''). The son of a ''lu'' was called a ''dumu-nita'' until he

married Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognized union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children, and between t ...

, becoming a "young man" (''gurus''). A woman (''munus'') went from being a daughter (''dumu-mi'') to a wife (''dam''), then if she outlived her

husband A husband is a male in a marital relationship, who may also be referred to as a spouse. The rights and obligations of a husband regarding his spouse and others, and his status in the community and in law, vary between societies and cultures ...

, a widow (''nu-ma-su''), who could remarry.

Content

The prologue, typical of

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...

n law codes, invokes the deities for Ur-Nammu's kingship, Nanna and Utu, and decrees "equity in the land". One mina ( of a talent) was made equal to 60

shekel Shekel or sheqel ( akk, 𒅆𒅗𒇻 ''šiqlu'' or ''siqlu,'' he, שקל, plural he, שקלים or shekels, Phoenician: ) is an ancient Mesopotamian coin, usually of silver. A shekel was first a unit of weight—very roughly —and became c ...

s (1 shekel = 8.3

gram The gram (originally gramme; SI unit symbol g) is a unit of mass in the International System of Units (SI) equal to one one thousandth of a kilogram. Originally defined as of 1795 as "the absolute weight of a volume of pure water equal to th ...

s, or 0.3 oz).

Surviving laws

Among the surviving laws are these:Roth, Martha. ''Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor'', pp. 13–22.

Notes

:1.A slave who has married (and presumably will soon have children) cannot be set free and forced to leave the household so that the owner can save themselves the expense of supporting the slave's family. Slaves needed the consent of their masters to marry, so this ensured they were not just turned out: even if they were now a freedman, they were still members of the household and they and their family had to be supported by it.Barton, George A. "An Important Social Law of the Ancient Babylonians—A Text Hitherto Misunderstood." ''The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures'', vol. 37, no. 1, 1920, pp. 62–71. . :2. This presumably relates to a freeman killing another man's slave, as a slave is the preferred fine above a simple payment in silver, building on the trend in laws 31 and 32 for payment in kind for certain offences. The fact that the fine in silver is equivalent to cutting off a free man's foot also seems to suggest this.

Discovery

Background

Content

Surviving laws

See also

Notes

References

Further reading