• Source: Code of Ur-Nammu

The Code of Ur-Nammu is the oldest known surviving law code. 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."




Discovery


The first recension of the code (Ni 3191), an Old Babylonian period copy in two fragments found at Nippur, in what is now Iraq, was translated by Samuel Noah Kramer in 1952. These fragments are held at the Istanbul Archaeology Museums. Owing to its partial preservation, only the long prologue and five of the laws were discernible. Kramer noted that luck was involved in the discovery:

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.
Two further tablet fragments (IM 85688+85689) now held at Iraq Museum in Baghdad, with no prologue or concluding formula, were found in Ur and translated in 1965, allowing some 30 of the 57 laws to be reconstructed. Two exemplars were found in Sippar. One (Si 277), held at the Istanbul Museum, bears the prologue and lines 125-79. The other (BM 54722+), held at the British Museum, bears the laws and part of the concluding formula.




Background



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.
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


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).




= Surviving laws

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Among the surviving laws are these:




See also



Cuneiform law
Code of Hammurabi
List of ancient legal codes
List of inscriptions in biblical archaeology
Ancient Mesopotamian units of measurement




References






= Notes

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= Citations

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= Sources

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Barton, George A. (1920). "An Important Social Law of the Ancient Babylonians—A Text Hitherto Misunderstood". The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures. 37 (1): 62–71. doi:10.1086/369917. JSTOR 528363.
Finkelstein, Jacob J. (1968). "The Laws of Ur-Nammu". Journal of Cuneiform Studies. 22 (3–4): 66–82. doi:10.2307/1359121. JSTOR 1359121.
Frayne, Douglas (1997). "Ur-Nammu E3/2.1.1". Ur III Period (2112-2004 BC). University of Toronto Press. pp. 5–90. doi:10.3138/9781442657069. ISBN 978-1-4426-5706-9.
Gurney, O. R.; Kramer, Samuel Noah (1965). "Two Fragments of Sumerian Laws" (PDF). Assyriological Studies. 16: 13–19.
Kramer, Samuel Noah (1954). "Ur-Nammu Law Code". Orientalia. 23 (1): 40–51. JSTOR 43073169.
Kramer, Samuel Noah (1956). History begins at Sumer. London: Thames & Hudson.
Kramer, Samuel Noah (1983). "The Ur-Nammu Law Code: Who Was Its Author?". Orientalia. 52 (4): 453–56. JSTOR 43075250.
Roth, Martha T. (1995). Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor. Writings from the Ancient World. Vol. 6. ISBN 9780788503788.
Yildiz, Fatma (1981). "A Tablet of Codex Ur-Nammu from Sippar". Orientalia. 50 (1): 87–97. JSTOR 43075013.




Further reading


Badamchi, Hossein (2017). "Usurpation of Agricultural Land and Codex Ur-Namma, 39". Akkadica. 138 (2): 81–188.
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. ISBN 9781934309339.
Feenstra, O.; Roll, P.; Seybold, I. (1991). "The Austrian penal code and the Codex Ur-nammu--a comparison from the forensic medicine viewpoint". Beiträge zur Gerichtlichen Medizin. 49: 289–295. PMID 1811511.
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.; 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. ISBN 9781575063553. JSTOR 10.5325/j.ctv1bxh3kh.
Szlechter, Émile (1953). "A propos du Code d'Ur-nammu". Revue d'assyriologie et d'archéologie orientale (in French). 47 (1): 1–10. JSTOR 23295406.
Szlechter, Émile (1955). "Le Code d'Ur-Nnamu". Revue d'assyriologie et d'archéologie orientale (in French). 49 (4): 169–177. JSTOR 23295601.




External links


Digital Ur recension at CDLI
Digital Nippur recension at CDLI
Digital Sippar recension Si 0277 at CDLI
Digital Sippar recenion BM 54722+ at CDLI

Kata Kunci Pencarian:

• Undang-Undang Ur-Nammu
• Ur-Nammu
• Daftar prasasti hukum kuno
• Daftar artefak terkait Alkitab
• Perbudakan
• Code of Ur-Nammu
• Ur-Nammu
• Third Dynasty of Ur
• List of ancient legal codes
• Code of Lipit-Ishtar
• Code of Hammurabi
• Hammurabi
• Trial by ordeal
• Ur
• Code of law