Description
The law collections presented in this volume are compilations, varying in legal and literary sophistication, recorded by scribes in the schools and the royal centers of ancient Mesopotamia and Asia Minor from the end of the third millennium through the middle of the first millennium BCE. Sumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian, and Hittite texts, with accompanying English translations, are included. Some of the collections, such as the famous Laws of Hammurabi, achieved a wide audience; others, such as the Laws about Rented Oxen, were scribal exercises limited to a local school center. All, however, reflected contemporary legal practice in the scribes’ recordings of contracts, administrative documents, and court cases and also provide historians with evidence of abstractions of legal rules from specific cases. In addition to the texts and translations, the volume includes a list of sources, bibliography, glossary, and numerous indexes.
Martha T. Roth is the Chauncey S. Boucher Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and the ISAC, and the Editor-in-Charge of the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary. Roth researches and publishes on the legal and social history of the ancient Near East. Her primary interests have been on family law and on women’s legal and social issues, and on the compilation and transmission law norms. Currently, she is working on a project on Mesopotamian law cases.
Preview
