Ur-Nammu law code

**Ur-Nammu law code** is dated to 2100 BCE, making it the oldest surviving law code on record. This law code represents the laws of the Third Dynasty of Ur, or Ur III. It is likely based on an earlier law-code, that of Urukagina (c. 2350 BCE) but has not been found yet. Sumerian law influenced the later Babylonish Code of Hammurabi (1750 BCE) and the Hebrew Ten Commandments (c. 1500 BCE).

## Law code

*Among the surviving laws are these:*

If a man commits a murder, that man must be killed.

If a man commits a robbery, he will be killed.

If a man commits a kidnapping, he is to be imprisoned and pay 15 shekels of silver.

If a slave marries a slave, and that slave is set free, he does not leave the household.

If a slave marries a native person, he/she is to hand the firstborn son over to his owner.

If a man violates the right of another and deflowers the virgin wife of a young man, they shall kill that male.

If the wife of a man followed after another man and he slept with her, they shall slay that woman, but that male shall be set free.

If a man proceeded by force, and deflowered the virgin female slave of another man, that man must pay five shekels of silver.

If a man divorces his first-time wife, he shall pay one mina of silver.

If it is a widow whom he divorces, he shall pay half a mina of silver.

If the man had slept with the widow without there having been any marriage contract, he need not pay any silver.

If a man is accused of sorcery, he must undergo ordeal by water; if he is proven innocent, his accuser must pay 3 shekels.

If a man accused the wife of a man of adultery, and the river ordeal proved her innocent, then the man who had accused her must pay one-third of a mina of silver.

If a prospective son-in-law enters the house of his prospective father-in-law, but his father-in-law later gives his daughter to another man, the father-in-law shall return to the rejected son-in-law twofold the amount of bridal presents he had brought.

If [*illegible*], he shall weigh and deliver to him 2 shekels of silver.

If a slave escapes from the city limits, and someone returns him, the owner shall pay two shekels to the one who returned him.

If a man knocks out the eye of another man, he shall weigh out half a mina of silver.

If a man has cut off another man's foot, he is to pay ten shekels.

If a man, in the course of a scuffle, smashed the limb of another man with a club, he shall pay one mina of silver.

If someone severed the nose of another man with a copper knife, he must pay two-thirds of a mina of silver.

If a man knocks out a tooth of another man, he shall pay two shekels of silver.

[*illegible*] If he does not have a slave, he is to pay 10 shekels of silver. If he does not have silver, he is to give another thing that belongs to him.

If a man's slave-woman, comparing herself to her mistress, speaks insolently to her, her mouth shall be scoured with 1 quart of salt.

If a slave woman strikes someone acting with the authority of her mistress, [*illegible*]

If a man appeared as a witness, and was shown to be a perjurer, he must pay fifteen shekels of silver.

If a man appears as a witness, but withdraws his oath, he must make payment, to the extent of the value in litigation of the case.

If a man stealthily cultivates the field of another man and he raises a complaint, this is however to be rejected, and this man will lose his expenses.

If a man flooded the field of a man with water, he shall measure out three kur of barley per iku of field.

If a man had let an arable field to a(nother) man for cultivation, but he did not cultivate it, turning it into wasteland, he shall measure out three kur of barley per *iku* of field.