UR-NAMMU, Code of. – A legislative text, deciphered in 1952, which may now be considered the oldest known “code” of law, and already attests not only a long tradition of law, but even reforms of law, and proves the consistent juridical tradition of Sumerian and Akkadian Mesopotamia (v. HAMMURABI (HAMMURAPI)).
It is authored by King UR-NAMMU (“servant of the goddess Nammu,” the primeval Ocean conceived as the universal mother), founder of the Third Dynasty of Ur (c. 2050–c. 1950 B.C.).
It contains (in the preamble) socially commendable principles of law: “that the orphan and the widow not become prey to the rich,” “he who has a sìcio of silver not become prey to him who has a mina (≈ 60 sìci).” Only five laws are decipherable: art. 1 establishes the order of the River; art. 2 the return of the slave to his master; arts. 3–5 the compensations due in certain cases of bodily injury. The absence of the law of retaliation (v.), so characteristic of Middle Assyrian law, widespread also in the Code of Hammurabi and in the legislation of the Pentateuch, is due to the effort to humanize the law; in this respect, the new code agrees, as far as can now be judged, with arts. 42–48 of the Code of Bilalama (found in 1948) and with Hittite law.