Ancient Written Law Codes
Written collections of laws or legal decisions, exemplified by Mesopotamian Sumerian and Babylonian law-code traditions.
Core metadata
- ID: codified_law
- Era: Ancient
- First known date: -2100 (century)
- Region: Sumer and Babylonia, Mesopotamia
- Review status: source_checked
- Maturity: N/A
Prerequisites
Dependents
- Banking (Early Forms) (banking_early_forms)
- Banking (banking)
- Bills of Exchange & Early Finance (bills_of_exchange_early_finance)
- Citizenship as Legal Concept (citizenship_as_legal_concept)
- Contract Law (contract_law)
- Limited Liability Corporation (corporation_limited_liability)
- Demography (demography)
- Early Copyright & Printing Privileges (early_copyright_printing_privileges)
- Feudalism (feudalism)
- Guilds (guilds)
- Early Hospitals (hospitals_early)
- International Cooperation & Treaties (international_cooperation_treaties)
- Early International Law (Grotius) (international_law_early_grotius)
- Joint-Stock Companies (joint_stock_companies)
- Labor Unions & Collective Bargaining (labor_unions_collective_bargaining)
- Legal Personhood for Institutions (legal_personhood_institutions)
- Legal Systems (Common/Civil Law) (legal_systems_common_civil)
- Maritime Insurance (maritime_insurance)
- Mercantilism Economic Theory (mercantilism_economic_theory)
- Municipal Building Codes (municipal_building_codes)
- Parliaments & Estates-General (parliaments_estates_general)
- Patent Systems (patent_systems)
- Political Philosophy (Machiavelli) (political_philosophy_machiavelli)
- Public Archives (public_archives)
- Public Education Systems (public_education_systems)
- Public Health Systems (public_health_systems)
- Public Libraries (Scroll Collections) (public_libraries_scroll_collections)
- Public Notice Boards (public_notice_boards)
- Quarantine & Public Health Measures (quarantine_public_health_measures)
- Roman Law (roman_law)
- Chattel Slavery (slavery_chattel)
- Sovereignty Theory (Bodin) (sovereignty_theory_bodin)
- Early Stock Exchanges (stock_exchange_early)
- Cadastral Maps (surveyed_cadastral_maps)
- Trade Guilds (Collegia) (trade_guilds_collegia)
- Trade Leagues (trade_leagues)
- Universities (universities)
Fields
- None.
Node sources
- The Ur-Nammu Law Code (The Schoyen Collection, 2011, museum) • Supports: node, maturity
- Code of Hammurabi (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2026, generic_overview) • Supports: node
Prerequisite edge evidence
Edge/source evidence summary:
- Prerequisite edges: 1
- Average edge confidence: 92%
- Prerequisite sources: 2
- textbook: 1
| Prerequisite | Type | Confidence | Evidence level | Note | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Writing (writing) | required | 92% | textbook | The scoped technology is a written law code; the Ur-Nammu witness is described as Sumerian text on clay in cuneiform, and Hammurabi's later laws were inscribed on a stela. |
|
This page is generated from canonical era JSON and is indexable by URL.