The Law of the Ancients

*Part of Abun*

The Law of the Ancients are a series of papyrus scrolls that contain the fundamental laws of the Kingdom of Abun. According to the historians, the scrolls were written in year 213, when king Lakala II Mutan of the Rakum clan ordered the Royal Scribes to transpose the Abunese laws into written form. Currently, the original scrolls of the Law of the Ancients are stored in a secret room of the Royal Palace in Enit.

Before the unification of the Kingdoms of the South, each state had its own laws. Due to the limited diffusion of writing, the laws of each state were transmitted orally to the kings by their trusted counselors. This tradition persisted even after Yaz "Buraldkin" united the kingdoms into a single state, as a way to preserve the identity of the people who made Abun. In order to show respect to the previous kingdoms of the South, King Yaz called them the "Law of the Ancients" because the laws adopted by the ancestors would've regulated the life of the new Abunese nation and its citizens.

However, the more the time passed, and kings succeded one by one, a problem begun to arise. Since the laws weren't written but were transmitted orally by the previous king's counselor, this would've led to a personal interpretation of the law, rendering them weak and easily changeable according to the projects and mood of the ruler. Many kings, especially during the first century after the unification tried to transpose the laws in a written form, but they were always pushed back because the laws were too much to be written and Some of these laws were completely forgotten.

## The great step forward

Due to the problems stated in the previous paragraph, many kings were discouraged to transcript the Abunese law into a single corpus, until year 213, when the new Ustran king of Abun, Lakala II Mutan of the Rakum clan, decided that was necessary to transpose the ancient Abunese laws on scrolls, in order to keep memory of them and avoid manipulations.

So, king Lakala gathered a group consisting in 200 scribes who were involved in a complex task: they should've listened to the Royal Counselors' memories of the oral laws, and then they would've transcribed their words on papyrus scrolls. After they would do so, they'd have to show the scrolls to the Royal Jurists and the King, in order to receive their approal or know what should be removed, changed or improved. This event attracted a lot of attention, since the scribes worked in the gardens of the Royal Palace, that were opened to the public as a way to show the importance of what they were doing.

In the end, the transcribing work of the 200 scribes lasted for two years, from 213 to 215, and the Law of the Ancients was finally transposed on a more reliable support: 30 long papyrus scrolls were required for all the laws approved before and after Abun's unification, hundreds of laws were abolished, some of them merged, some other ones rewritten, in order to modernize them.

King Lakala's decision to transcribe the laws allowed the Abunese to keep an historic memory of their laws and avoided new Kings to change laws according to their will, and due to this, Lakala was nicknamed "The Transcriber" in honour to his massive transcription project.

## The Law of the Ancients: the Fundamental Law of Abun

According to the scrolls, the Law of the Ancients are the fundamental law of the Kingdom of Abun. They are conceived to regulate any aspect of the society and the administration of the country. While most of the laws are the result of a union between the laws that were adopted in the former Kingdoms of the South, the Law of the Ancients also contains new articles that have been approved as decrees by the other kings.

However, the main core of the law, the one consisting in 30 papyrus scrolls, cannot be modified freely: it's necessary the unanimous consensus of the High Priests and the governors of all the Abunese regions in order to change them, because the change of an article of the Law of the Ancients means changing the way of life of the Abunese permanently; for example when king Cheoughtia Seruk of the Atris clan abolished slavery, he needed to gather all the High Priests and the governors of Abun in a plenary session, in order to approve the decree that would abolish slavery in the country, replacing it with servitude, since the article concerning slavery would've been permanently erased from the ancient scrolls. The reason of the High Priests' presence is due to the sacrality of the scrolls, that were blessed to all the Abunese gods.

So, the usual way for an Abunese ruler to emanate a law is the approval of a Royal Decree. Royal Decrees have their own scrolls in order to not interfere with the Law of the Ancients, and they are kept in a separate archive: the Royal Register, which is located in a separate building inside the Royal Palace.