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Cracking the Code of Ancient Sumerian Writing
How cuneiform writing grew from clay accounting tokens into a wedge-shaped script, how scribes learned it, and how modern scholars learned to read it again.
Cradle of Civilization
Writing and Law
Cuneiform and the earliest law codes.
Ancient Mesopotamian Law Codes: The Oldest Known Laws
A comparison of the surviving Mesopotamian law codes of Ur-Nammu, Lipit-Ishtar, Eshnunna and Hammurabi, and what each shows about punishment and compensation.
Ancient Mesopotamian Law: The Oldest Known Code
The Code of Ur-Nammu, from about 2100 BCE, is the oldest surviving law code. Learn how its silver fines worked and how judges and courts handled real cases.
The Ancient Babylonian Code of Hammurabi: A Legacy of Law and Justice
The Hammurabi stele, set up near 1754 BCE: its structure, the eye-for-an-eye rules, class distinctions, and its rediscovery at Susa in 1901.
The Ancient Sumerian Writing: A Legacy of Literacy and Culture
Who could read and write in Sumer, how writing spread from accounts to letters and literature, and how Sumerian lived on as a scholarly language.
The Enigmatic Writing of the Sumerians: Unlocking the Code
How cuneiform was deciphered in the 1800s, from Grotefend and Rawlinson at Behistun to the later recognition of Sumerian as a separate language.
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Mesopotamia Overview The land between the rivers and how its civilization began. Sumerian Cities Uruk, Eridu, Ur and Nippur, the first great cities. Myth and Art Gods, creation stories, the Gilgamesh epic and Mesopotamian art. Sumerian History The story of Sumer from early villages to the Ur III state and its rediscovery. Sumerian Innovations Farming, mathematics, technology and legal practice in Sumer. Ancient Crafts and Technology Metals, glass, cloth, concrete and the tools that built early civilizations. Women and Children in the Ancient World Family life, education and the women who shaped ancient history. Archaeology Methods and Dating The scientific tools used to date and reconstruct the ancient past.