Written law code
Código legal escrito
- Date
- c. 2100 BCE · confidence high
- Place
- Ur (Ur-Nammu, c. 2100 BCE) and Babylon / Sippar (Hammurabi, c. 1750 BCE), Iraq
- Credited to
- Ur-Nammu of Ur; Lipit-Ishtar; Hammurabi of Babylon
- People
- 👤 Lipit-Ishtar
- Field
- Communication
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Collection of case-type rulings ('if a man... then...') promulgated by the king and inscribed on public stelae, preceded by a prologue justifying his authority as guarantor of justice. Ur-Nammu's code is the oldest; Hammurabi's, the most complete.
Urukagina's 'reforms' (c. 2350 BCE) are the oldest legal edict, but not a systematic code. Whether the codes were applicable law or monuments of royal propaganda is debated: the courts rarely cite them.
What it led to
- Law known in advance and applied equally, rather than left to the whim of the judge or the powerful
- The state as guarantor of justice, not only as tax collector and warrior
- Monetary tariffs for compensation and punishment, the basis of the silver economy
- Law as a written discipline, taught in schools and compared across kingdoms (Hittite, Assyrian and biblical laws)
Built on
- Cuneiform writingc. 3200 BCE
- Silver by weight as money standardc. 2500 BCE
- Urukagina of Lagash's reforms (c. 2350 BC)
- Silver as a standard of value
Made possible
- Dušan's Code (Zakonik)1349-1354
- Standardised contract
- Hittite laws
- Roman law (a distant forerunner)
- Royal court of appeal