Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor

by Roth, Martha Tobi; Hoffner, Harry A.; Michalowski, Piotr

• ISBN13: 9780788503788
• ISBN10: 0788503782
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-08-01
• Publisher: Scholars Pr

Summary

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 B.C.E. Sumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian, and Hittite texts, with accompanying English translations, are included. Some of the collections, like the famous Laws of Hammurabi, achieved a wide audience; others, like 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.

Table of Contents

Series Editor's Foreword
Chronological Table
Maps
Explanation of Conventions, Signs, and Abbreviations
Weights and Measures
Acknowledgments
Introduction	p. 1
Cuneiform Script	p. 1
The Scribal Curriculum	p. 2
The Formats and Structures of the Law Collections	p. 2
The Nature and Function of the Law Collections	p. 4
About the Translations	p. 7
About the Transliterations and Transcriptions	p. 9
Translations	p. 11
Sumerian
Laws of Ur-Namma	p. 13
Laws of Lipit-Ishtar	p. 23
Laws of X	p. 36
Laws about Rented Oxen	p. 40
Sumerian Laws Exercise Tablet	p. 42
Sumerian Laws Handbook of Forms	p. 46
Babylonian
Laws of Eshnunna	p. 57
Laws of Hammurabi	p. 71
Neo-Babylonian Laws	p. 143
Assyrian
Middle Assyrian Laws	p. 153
Middle Assyrian Palace Decrees	p. 195
Hittite
Hittite Laws	p. 213
Introduction	p. 213
Text of the Laws	p. 217
Sources for Hittite Laws	p. 241
Bibliography for Hittite Laws	p. 242
Glossary for Hittite Laws	p. 244
Index for Hittite Laws	p. 246
Sources	p. 249
Bibliography	p. 255
Glossary	p. 267
Indexes	p. 274
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