Code Of Ur-Nammu
The Code of Ur-Nammu is the oldest known law code surviving today. It was written on tablets, in the Sumerian language c. 2100–2050 BC. Although the preface directly credits the laws to king Ur-Nammu of Ur (2112–2095 BC), some historians think they should rather be ascribed to his son Shulgi.
The first copy of the code, in two fragments found at Nippur, was translated by Samuel Kramer in 1952; owing to its partial preservation, only the prologue and 5 of the laws were discernible. Further tablets were found in Ur and translated in 1965, allowing some 40 of the 57 laws to be reconstructed. Another copy found in Sippar contains slight variants.
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. For the oldest extant law-code known to history, it is considered remarkably advanced, because 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 the "Sumerian Renaissance". 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.
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