Civility

Also available: Ancient Law

Course Description / Ancient Law Connections

Required Reading

Cyrus H. Gordon, The Ancient Near East 72-84 (1964)
E.A. Speiser, "Early Law and Civilization", in Collected Writings (1971)
J.J. Finkelstein, "Law in the Ancient Near East", 5 Encyclopedia Biblica (1968), reprinted in Jewish Law and Decision-Making: A Study Through Time (Aaron M. Schreiber, ed., 1979)
J.N. Postgate, "Laws and the Law", in Early Mesopotamia: Society and Economy at the Dawn of History 275-291(1992)
Theodore J. Meek, trans., "The Code of Hammurabi", in Ancient Near Eastern Texts (J. Pritchard, ed., 1955)
Jean Bottero, "The Code' of Hammurabi", in Mesopotamia, Writing, Reasoning and the Gods 156-69; 179-184 (1993)

Recommended Reading

Fadhil A. Ali, "Blowing the Horn for Official Announcement", 20 Sumer 66 (1964)
G.R. Driver and J.C. Miles, The Babylonian Laws (1952)
Veysel Donbaz, "A Middle Babylonian Legal Document Raising Problems in Kassite Chronology", 41 Journal of Near Eastern Studies 207 (1982)
B.L.Eichler, "Literary Structure in the Laws of Eshnunna", in Language, Literature and History (1987)
Robert C. Ellickson and Charles DiA Thorland, "Ancient Land Law: Mesopotamia, Egypt, Israel", 71 Chicago-Kent Law Review 321 (1995)
J.J. Finkelstein, "Ammisaduqa' Edict and the Babylonian Law Codes'", 15 Journal of Cuneiform Studies 91 (1961)
J.J. Finkelstein, "Some New Misharum Material and Its Implications", in Studies in Honor of Benno Landsberger on His Seventy-Fifth Birthday (1965)
J.J. Finkelstein, "An Old Babylonian Herding Contract and Genesis 31:38f", 88 Journal of the American Oriental Society 30 (1968)
J.J. Finkelstein, "The Laws of Ur-Nammu", 22 Journal of Cuneiform Studies 66 (1969)
J.J. Finkelstein, "On Some Recent Studies in Cuneiform Law", 90 Journal of the American Oriental Society 243 (1970)
J.J. Finkelstein, "Sex Offenses in Sumerian Laws", 86 Journal of the American Oriental Society 355 (1966)
Tikva S. Frymer-Kensky, The Judicial Ordeal in the Ancient Near East, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 1977
Albert Goetze, "Mesopotamian Laws and the Historian", 69 Journal of the American Oriental Society 115 (1949)
Edwin M. Good, "Capital Punishment and its Alternatives in Ancient Near Eastern Law", 19 Stanford Law Review 947 (1967)
Cyrus Gordon, Hammurapi's Code: Quaint or Forward Looking? (1957)
Samuel Greengus, "The Old Babylonian Marriage Contract", 89 Journal of the American Oriental Society 505 (1969)
Edward L. Greenstein, " To Grasp the Hem' in Ugaratic Literature", 32 Vetus Testamentum 217 (1982)
O.R. Gurney & S.N. Kramer, "Two Fragments of Sumerian Laws", 16 Assyriological Studies 13 (1965)
Rivkah Harris, "The Case of Three Babylonian Marriage Contracts", 33 Journal of Near Eastern Studies 363 (1974)
Rivkah Harris, "On the Process of Secularization Under Hammurapi", 14 Journal of Cuneiform Studies 117 (1961)
Bernard J. Hibbitts, "'Coming to Our Senses': Communication and Legal Expression in Performance Cultures", 41 Emory Law Journal 873 (1992)
Bernard S. Jackson, "Historical Aspects of Legal Drafting in the Light of Modern Theories of Cognitive Development", 3 International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 349 (1980)
Bernard S. Jackson, "Principles and Cases: The Theft Laws of Hammurabi", 7 Irish Jurist 161 (1972)
T. Jacobsen, "An Ancient Mesopotamian Trial for Homicide", in Jewish Law and Decision-Making: A Study Through Time (Aaron M. Schreiber ed., 1979)
Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor (Martha Roth ed., 1995)
Niels Peter Lemche, "Justice in Western Asia in Antiquity, or Why No Laws Were Needed!", 70 Chicago-Kent Law Review 1695 (1995)
Saul Levmore, "Rethinking Comparative Law: Variety and Uniformity in Ancient and Modern Tort Law", 61 Tulane Law Review 235 (1986)
Stephen J. Lieberman, "Nippur: City of Decisions", in Nippur at the Centennial (Maria deJong Ellis ed., 1992)
Herbert Liebesny, "Evidence in Nuzi Legal Procedure", 61 Journal of the American Oriental Society 130 (1941)
R.A.F. Mackenzie, "The Formal Aspect of Ancient Near Eastern Law", in The Seed of Wisdom: Essays in Honour of T.J. Meek (W.S. McCullough, ed., 1964).
Donald L. Magnetti, "'Oath-Functions' and the 'Oath Process' in the Civil and Criminal Law of the Ancient Near East", 5 Brooklyn Journal of International Law 1 (1979)
Meir Malul, Studies of Legal Symbolic Acts in Mesopotamian Law, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1983
Meir Malul, "The bukannum-Clause - Relinquishment of Rights by Previous Right Holder", 75 Zeitschrift fur Assyriologie und Vorderasiastische Archaologie 66 (1985)
Meir Malul, "Sillam patarum - To Unfasten the Pin', Copula Carnalis and the Formation of Marriage in Ancient Mesopotamia", 32 Jaarbericht Van Het Vooraziatisch-Egyptisch Genootschap 64 (1993)
Meir Malul, "Touching the Sexual Organs as an Oath Ceremony in an Akkadian letter", 37 Vetus Testamentum 491 (1987)
Piotr Michalowski, "Writing and Literacy in Early States: A Mesopotamianist Perspective", in Literacy: Interdisciplinary Conversations (1994)
Johannes M. Renger, "Institutional, Communal and Individual Ownership or Possession of Arable Land in Ancient Mesopotamia from the End of the Fourth to the End of the First Millenium BC", 71 Chicago-Kent Law Review 269 (1995)
Martha T. Roth, "Mesopotamian Legal Traditions and the Laws of Hammurabi", 71 Chicago-Kent Law Review 13 (1995)
E.A. Speiser, "Cuneiform Law and the History of Civilization", 107 Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 536 (1963)
Francis Rue Steele, "The Code of Lipit-Ishtar", 50 American Journal of Archaeology (Supplement) 425 (1948)
Savina J. Teubel, "Women, the Law and the Ancient Near East", in Fields of Offerings: Studies in Honor of Raphael Patai (1983)
Klaus R. Veenhof, " In Accordance with the Words of the Stele': Evidence for Old Assyrian Legislation", 70 Chicago-Kent Law Review 1717 (1995)
Raymond Westbrook, "Biblical and Cuneiform Law Codes", reprinted in Folk Law (Alison Dundes Renteln and Alan Dundes, eds., 1994)
Raymond Westbrook, "Old Babylonian Marriage Law", 60 Orientalia 3 (1991)
Raymond Westbrook, "Slave and Master in Ancient Near Eastern Law", 70 Chicago-Kent Law Review 1631 (1995)
D.J. Wiseman, "The Laws of Hammurabi, Again", 7 Journal of Semetic Studies 161 (1962)
Reuven Yaron, The Laws of Eshnunna (1969)
Norman Yoffee, "Aspects of Mesopotamian Land Sales", 90 American Anthropologist 119 (1988)
Norman Yoffee, "Context and Authority in Early Mesopotamian Law", in State Formation and Political Legitimacy (19??)
Carlo Zaccagnini, "Sacred and Human Components in Ancient Near Eastern Law", 33 History of Religions 265 (1994)