The Code of Ur-Nammu is the oldest known law code surviving today. It is from Mesopotamia and is written on tablets, in the Sumerian language c. 2100–2050 BCE. It contains strong statements of royal power like "I eliminated enmity, violence, and cries for justice."[1]
Code of Ur-Nammu
The first known version of the code in its current location
The first copy of the code, in two fragments found at Nippur, in what is now Iraq, was translated by Samuel Kramer in 1952. These fragments are held at the Istanbul Archaeological Museums. Owing to its partial preservation, only the prologue and five of the laws were discernible.[2] Kramer noted that luck was involved in the discovery:[2]
In all probability I would have missed the Ur-Nammu tablet altogether had it not been for an opportune letter from F. R. Kraus, now Professor of Cuneiform Studies at the University of Leiden in Holland ... His letter said that some years ago, in the course of his duties as curator in the Istanbul Museum, he had come upon two fragments of a tablet inscribed with Sumerian laws, had made a "join" of the two pieces, and had catalogued the resulting tablet as No. 3191 of the Nippur collection of the Museum ... Since Sumerian law tablets are extremely rare, I had No. 3191 brought to my working table at once. There it lay, a sun-baked tablet, light brown in color, 20 by 10 centimeters in size. More than half of the writing was destroyed, and what was preserved seemed at first hopelessly unintelligible. But after several days of concentrated study, its contents began to become clear and take shape, and I realized with no little excitement that what I held in my hand was a copy of the oldest law code as yet known to man.
Further tablets were found in Ur and translated in 1965, allowing some 30 of the 57 laws to be reconstructed.[3] Another copy found in Sippar contains slight variants.[4]
Backgroundedit
The Sumerian King Ur-Nammu (seated), the creator of the Code of Ur-Nammu, bestows governorship on Ḫašḫamer, ensi of Iškun-Sin (cylinder seal impression, c. 2100 BC).
The preface directly credits the laws to king Ur-Nammu of Ur (2112–2095 BC). 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.[5]
Although it is known that earlier law-codes existed, such as the Code of Urukagina, this represents the earliest extant legal text. It is three centuries older than the Code of Hammurabi. The laws are arranged in casuistic 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 ('eye for an eye') principle of Babylonian law. However, murder, robbery, adultery and rape were capital offenses.
The code reveals a glimpse at societal structure during Ur's Third Dynasty. Beneath the lugal ("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, 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 widow (nu-ma-su), who could remarry.
Contentedit
The prologue, typical of Mesopotamian law codes, invokes the deities for Ur-Nammu's kingship, Nanna and Utu, and decrees "equity in the land".
... After An and Enlil had turned over the Kingship of Ur to Nanna, at that time did Ur-Nammu, son born of Ninsun, for his beloved mother who bore him, in accordance with his principles of equity and truth ... Then did Ur-Nammu the mighty warrior, king of Ur, king of Sumer and Akkad, by the might of Nanna, lord of the city, and in accordance with the true word of Utu, establish equity in the land; he banished malediction, violence and strife, and set the monthly Temple expenses at 90 gur of barley, 30 sheep, and 30 sila of butter. He fashioned the bronze sila-measure, standardized the one-mina weight, and standardized the stone weight of a shekel of silver in relation to one mina ... The orphan was not delivered up to the rich man; the widow was not delivered up to the mighty man; the man of one shekel was not delivered up to the man of one mina.
One mina (1⁄60 of a talent) was made equal to 60 shekels (1 shekel = 8.3 grams, or 0.3 oz).
If a man commits a kidnapping, he is to be imprisoned and pay 15 shekels of silver.
If a slave marries a slave, and that slave is set free, he does not leave the household.[1]
If a slave marries a native [i.e. free] person, he/she is to hand the firstborn son over to his owner.
If a man violates the right of another and deflowers the virgin wife of a young man, they shall kill that male.
If the wife of a man followed after another man and he slept with her, they shall slay that woman, but that male shall be set free. [§4 in some translations]
If a man proceeded by force, and deflowered the virgin female slave of another man, that man must pay five shekels of silver. (5)
If a man divorces his first-time wife, he shall pay (her) one mina of silver. (6)
If it is a (former) widow whom he divorces, he shall pay (her) half a mina of silver. (7)
If the man had slept with the widow without there having been any marriage contract, he need not pay any silver. (8)
If a man is accused of sorcery [translation disputed], he must undergo ordeal by water; if he is proven innocent, his accuser must pay 3 shekels. (10)[7][8]
If a man accused the wife of a man of adultery, and the river ordeal proved her innocent, then the man who had accused her must pay one-third of a mina of silver. (11)
If a prospective son-in-law enters the house of his prospective father-in-law, but his father-in-law later gives his daughter to another man, the father-in-law shall return to the rejected son-in-law twofold the amount of bridal presents he had brought. (12)
If [text destroyed], he shall weigh and deliver to him 2 shekels of silver.
If a slave escapes from the city limits, and someone returns him, the owner shall pay two shekels to the one who returned him. (14)
If a man knocks out the eye of another man, he shall weigh out half a mina of silver. (15)
If a man has cut off another man's foot, he is to pay ten shekels. (16)
If a man, in the course of a scuffle, smashed the limb of another man with a club, he shall pay one mina of silver. (17)
If someone severed the nose of another man with a copper knife, he must pay two-thirds of a mina of silver. (18)
If a man knocks out a tooth of another man, he shall pay two shekels of silver. (19)
[text destroyed] If he does not have a slave, he is to pay 10 shekels of silver. If he does not have silver, he is to give another thing that belongs to him. (21)[2]
If a man's slave-woman, comparing herself to her mistress, speaks insolently to her, her mouth shall be scoured with 1 quart of salt. (22)
If a slave woman strikes someone acting with the authority of her mistress, [text destroyed]
If a man appeared as a witness, and was shown to be a perjurer, he must pay fifteen shekels of silver. (25)
If a man appears as a witness, but withdraws his oath, he must make payment, to the extent of the value in litigation of the case. (26)
If a man stealthily cultivates the field of another man and he raises a complaint, this is however to be rejected, and this man will lose his expenses. (27)
If a man flooded the field of a man with water, he shall measure out three kur of barley per iku of field. (28)
If a man had let an arable field to a(nother) man for cultivation, but he did not cultivate it, turning it into wasteland, he shall measure out three kur of barley per iku of field. (29)
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.[9]
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.
^Gurney and Kramer, "Two Fragments of Sumerian Laws", 16 Assyriological Studies, pp. 13–19
^Frayne, Ur III Period (2112–2004 BC), University of Toronto Press, 1997 – Foreign Language Study – 489 pages
^Potts, D. T. (1999). The Archaeology of Elam. Cambridge University Press. p. 132. ISBN9780521564960.
^Roth, Martha. Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, pp. 13–22.
^S. N. Kramer. (1954). "Ur-Nammu Law Code". Orientalia, 23 (1), 40.
^Differing interpretations of this trial avail in Finkelstein 1969 Yildiz 1981 Sauren 1990
^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. JSTOR 528363.
Further readingedit
Civil, Miguel (2011). "The Law Collection of Ur-Namma". In George, Andrew R. (ed.). Cuneiform Royal Inscriptions and Related Texts in the Schøyen Collection. Bethesda, Maryland: CDL Press. pp. 221–286. ISBN9781934309339.
Kramer, S. N. (1954). "Ur-Nammu Law Code". Orientalia. 23 (1): 40–51. JSTOR 43073169.
Roth, Martha T. (1995). Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor. Writings from the Ancient World. Vol. 6. ISBN9780788503788.
Wilcke, Claus (2002). "Der Kodex Urnamma (CU): Versuch einer Rekonstruktion". In Abusch, Tzvi (ed.). Riches Hidden in Secret Places: Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Memory of Thorkild Jacobsen (in German). Penn State University Press. doi:10.1515/9781575065335. ISBN9781575065335. JSTOR 10.5325/j.ctv1bxh4wn.
Wilcke, Claus (2014). "Gesetze in sumerischer Sprache". In Koslova, Natalia; Vizirova, E.; Zólyomi, Gabor (eds.). Studies in Sumerian Language and Literature: Festschrift Joachim Krecher. Babel und Bibel (in German). Vol. 8. Penn State University Press. pp. 455–616. doi:10.1515/9781575063553. ISBN9781575063553. JSTOR 10.5325/j.ctv1bxh3kh.
February 16, 2024
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The Code of Ur Nammu is the oldest known law code surviving today It is from Mesopotamia and is written on tablets in the Sumerian language c 2100 2050 BCE It contains strong statements of royal power like I eliminated enmity violence and cries for justice 1 Code of Ur NammuThe first known version of the code in its current locationCreatedc 2100 BC 2050 BCLocationIstanbul Archaeology Museums Ni 3191 originally Nippur Mesopotamia modern day Iraq Author s Ur NammuPurposeLegal code Contents 1 Discovery 2 Background 3 Content 3 1 Surviving laws 4 See also 5 Notes 6 References 7 Further readingDiscovery editThe first copy of the code in two fragments found at Nippur in what is now Iraq was translated by Samuel Kramer in 1952 These fragments are held at the Istanbul Archaeological Museums Owing to its partial preservation only the prologue and five of the laws were discernible 2 Kramer noted that luck was involved in the discovery 2 In all probability I would have missed the Ur Nammu tablet altogether had it not been for an opportune letter from F R Kraus now Professor of Cuneiform Studies at the University of Leiden in Holland His letter said that some years ago in the course of his duties as curator in the Istanbul Museum he had come upon two fragments of a tablet inscribed with Sumerian laws had made a join of the two pieces and had catalogued the resulting tablet as No 3191 of the Nippur collection of the Museum Since Sumerian law tablets are extremely rare I had No 3191 brought to my working table at once There it lay a sun baked tablet light brown in color 20 by 10 centimeters in size More than half of the writing was destroyed and what was preserved seemed at first hopelessly unintelligible But after several days of concentrated study its contents began to become clear and take shape and I realized with no little excitement that what I held in my hand was a copy of the oldest law code as yet known to man Further tablets were found in Ur and translated in 1965 allowing some 30 of the 57 laws to be reconstructed 3 Another copy found in Sippar contains slight variants 4 Background edit nbsp The Sumerian King Ur Nammu seated the creator of the Code of Ur Nammu bestows governorship on Ḫasḫamer ensi of Iskun Sin cylinder seal impression c 2100 BC The preface directly credits the laws to king Ur Nammu of Ur 2112 2095 BC 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 5 Although it is known that earlier law codes existed such as the Code of Urukagina this represents the earliest extant legal text It is three centuries older than the Code of Hammurabi The laws are arranged in casuistic 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 eye for an eye principle of Babylonian law However murder robbery adultery and rape were capital offenses The code reveals a glimpse at societal structure during Ur s Third Dynasty Beneath the lugal 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 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 widow nu ma su who could remarry Content editThe prologue typical of Mesopotamian law codes invokes the deities for Ur Nammu s kingship Nanna and Utu and decrees equity in the land After An and Enlil had turned over the Kingship of Ur to Nanna at that time did Ur Nammu son born of Ninsun for his beloved mother who bore him in accordance with his principles of equity and truth Then did Ur Nammu the mighty warrior king of Ur king of Sumer and Akkad by the might of Nanna lord of the city and in accordance with the true word of Utu establish equity in the land he banished malediction violence and strife and set the monthly Temple expenses at 90 gur of barley 30 sheep and 30 sila of butter He fashioned the bronze sila measure standardized the one mina weight and standardized the stone weight of a shekel of silver in relation to one mina The orphan was not delivered up to the rich man the widow was not delivered up to the mighty man the man of one shekel was not delivered up to the man of one mina One mina 1 60 of a talent was made equal to 60 shekels 1 shekel 8 3 grams or 0 3 oz Surviving laws edit Among the surviving laws are these 6 If a man commits a murder that man must be killed If a man commits a robbery he will be killed If a man commits a kidnapping he is to be imprisoned and pay 15 shekels of silver If a slave marries a slave and that slave is set free he does not leave the household 1 If a slave marries a native i e free person he she is to hand the firstborn son over to his owner If a man violates the right of another and deflowers the virgin wife of a young man they shall kill that male If the wife of a man followed after another man and he slept with her they shall slay that woman but that male shall be set free 4 in some translations If a man proceeded by force and deflowered the virgin female slave of another man that man must pay five shekels of silver 5 If a man divorces his first time wife he shall pay her one mina of silver 6 If it is a former widow whom he divorces he shall pay her half a mina of silver 7 If the man had slept with the widow without there having been any marriage contract he need not pay any silver 8 If a man is accused of sorcery translation disputed he must undergo ordeal by water if he is proven innocent his accuser must pay 3 shekels 10 7 8 If a man accused the wife of a man of adultery and the river ordeal proved her innocent then the man who had accused her must pay one third of a mina of silver 11 If a prospective son in law enters the house of his prospective father in law but his father in law later gives his daughter to another man the father in law shall return to the rejected son in law twofold the amount of bridal presents he had brought 12 If text destroyed he shall weigh and deliver to him 2 shekels of silver If a slave escapes from the city limits and someone returns him the owner shall pay two shekels to the one who returned him 14 If a man knocks out the eye of another man he shall weigh out half a mina of silver 15 If a man has cut off another man s foot he is to pay ten shekels 16 If a man in the course of a scuffle smashed the limb of another man with a club he shall pay one mina of silver 17 If someone severed the nose of another man with a copper knife he must pay two thirds of a mina of silver 18 If a man knocks out a tooth of another man he shall pay two shekels of silver 19 text destroyed If he does not have a slave he is to pay 10 shekels of silver If he does not have silver he is to give another thing that belongs to him 21 2 If a man s slave woman comparing herself to her mistress speaks insolently to her her mouth shall be scoured with 1 quart of salt 22 If a slave woman strikes someone acting with the authority of her mistress text destroyed If a man appeared as a witness and was shown to be a perjurer he must pay fifteen shekels of silver 25 If a man appears as a witness but withdraws his oath he must make payment to the extent of the value in litigation of the case 26 If a man stealthily cultivates the field of another man and he raises a complaint this is however to be rejected and this man will lose his expenses 27 If a man flooded the field of a man with water he shall measure out three kur of barley per iku of field 28 If a man had let an arable field to a nother man for cultivation but he did not cultivate it turning it into wasteland he shall measure out three kur of barley per iku of field 29 See also edit nbsp Law portal nbsp Asia portalCuneiform law Hammurabi Code List of ancient legal codes List of artifacts in biblical archaeology Ancient Mesopotamian units of measurementNotes edit1 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 9 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 References edit Cos II 409 Laws of Ur Namma a b Kramer History begins at Sumer pp 52 55 Gurney and Kramer Two Fragments of Sumerian Laws 16 Assyriological Studies pp 13 19 Frayne Ur III Period 2112 2004 BC University of Toronto Press 1997 Foreign Language Study 489 pages Potts D T 1999 The Archaeology of Elam Cambridge University Press p 132 ISBN 9780521564960 Roth Martha Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor pp 13 22 S N Kramer 1954 Ur Nammu Law Code Orientalia 23 1 40 Differing interpretations of this trial avail in Finkelstein 1969 Yildiz 1981 Sauren 1990 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 JSTOR 528363 Further reading editCivil Miguel 2011 The Law Collection of Ur Namma In George Andrew R ed Cuneiform Royal Inscriptions and Related Texts in the Schoyen Collection Bethesda Maryland CDL Press pp 221 286 ISBN 9781934309339 Kramer S N 1954 Ur Nammu Law Code Orientalia 23 1 40 51 JSTOR 43073169 Roth Martha T 1995 Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor Writings from the Ancient World Vol 6 ISBN 9780788503788 Wilcke Claus 2002 Der Kodex Urnamma CU Versuch einer Rekonstruktion In Abusch Tzvi ed Riches Hidden in Secret Places Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Memory of Thorkild Jacobsen in German Penn State University Press doi 10 1515 9781575065335 ISBN 9781575065335 JSTOR 10 5325 j ctv1bxh4wn Wilcke Claus 2014 Gesetze in sumerischer Sprache In Koslova Natalia Vizirova E Zolyomi Gabor eds Studies in Sumerian Language and Literature Festschrift Joachim Krecher Babel und Bibel in German Vol 8 Penn State University Press pp 455 616 doi 10 1515 9781575063553 ISBN 9781575063553 JSTOR 10 5325 j ctv1bxh3kh Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Code of Ur Nammu amp oldid 1189319751, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
