Talk:Code of Ur-Nammu

Where is it?

This article does not state where the tablet is located today. Surely it is in some museum. I cannot seem to find anything on the web, only references to Wikipedia ... which is somewhat backwards, of course. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.156.49.28 (talk) 22:38, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

This is a little late, but your request has been answered! Shii (tock) 05:05, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Uncited clause

I originally copied the following 'example' of the code directlyh from the German wikipedia article, but I admit I found it dubious all along, since I could not find it corroborated in any other source; so I am removing it to here. (Kudos again to "dab", for expertly spotting 'the weakest link' here!)

tukum bi lú ba-úš dumu nita nu-un-tuku dumu mí dam nu-un-tuku-A ibila A ni ḫé A [citation needed]

• "If someone dies and has no son, then an unmarried daughter is to be made his heiress."

I have no idea where the German wikipedia had got this one from; my hunch is that it is actually from Lipit-Ishtar, or some other early code... Til Eulenspiegel 13:47, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Clarification

4. If a slave marries a slave, and that slave is set free, he does not leave the household.

It seems unclear who is not being set free. Is it saying that in this case the freed slave does not leave the household, or that the spouse of the freed slave does not leave the household? Does anyone know this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by RLent (talk • contribs) 20:21, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

The lede indicates that the Sumerian language distinguished "slave (male, arad; female geme)" so presumably it was obvious in the original and the apparent ambiguity is the result of the translation. Do any Sumerian scholars feel like providing a better translation of this clause. Kiore (talk) 10:55, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Given the context I think this may actually mean that a slave who has married (and presumably will soon have children) cannot be set free and forced to leave to household so that the owner can save themselves the expense of supporting the slave's family. Slaves needed the consent of their masters to marry, so this ensured they weren't just turned out - even if they were now a freedman, they were still members of the household and they and their family had to be supported by it. VeritasVox (talk) 02:06, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

I'm going to provisionally add this explanation as I can't see any other logical alternative to that interpretation, but will attempt to find a source - I actually did study sumerology, just so you all know I have background knowledge for this assertion.VeritasVox (talk) 02:09, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Couple of things I found in Thorkild Jacobsen's The Harps That Once -

1. The personal god and goddess of the household entered the bodies of the married couple to cause them to procreate (pg 22). The personal god was ritually addressed as 'the god of my fathers' by the male of the household (interestingly the same address used by Abraham in the bible, Jacobsen points out in Towards the Image of Tammuz), so if that holds true for slaves then the children are in a sense 'of' the household innately, presumably even in the womb.

2. A bride obeys her husband and his parents, so presumably the owners would be the 'parents' in slave marriage(an assumption, I admit) (pg 21). Following that logic, she would be bound to them/the household by her marriage, rather than her still being someone else's property, and therefore have a link to that household's gods.

VeritasVox (talk) 02:35, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/673292 - this suggests that certainly in the Old Babylonian texts, subordinates in the household (children, slaves) had the same linguistic grouping of 'dependents' (mār) (page 269-270) and that maybe wouldn't be an unreasonable extrapolation into the anterior sumerian culture as there's significant continuity of religion, custom etc.

I think this is it - http://www.jstor.org/stable/528363 pg 65/66

39.

nig-sal-ge5 nam-dam-Si ba-ab- ag-a (If) a slave-girl (?) unto wife- hood he shall take,

40.

u'-ba-Mit ~i1 ba-ab-da with her husband to sleep she shall come.

ie. the slave-woman was legally taken into the household, same as a bride who was a free woman. There's also talk in there of her dowry and proceedings in the event of a divorce, so she has the formal legal status of a wife.

VeritasVox (talk) 02:56, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Fines by modern standards

Silver probably was far less abundant those days than it is today. I estimated by the silver price given here that a shekel is approx 2,50 eur. That would mean that, for example, ripping off a foot: 25 euro. Kidnapping: 40 euro + imprisonment.

What might have been that day's standard income for a peasant or a merchant? It'd be interesting to compare the fines.

--Sigmundur (talk) 18:08, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

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24 [....] clarification

Unless it is a law against not owning any slaves, then too much detail has been omitted.58.8.121.66 (talk) 09:24, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I strongly suspect this relates to a freeman killing another man's slave - particularly as a slave is the preferred fine, above a simple payment in silver. Also the fact that it's equivalent to cutting off a free man's foot seems to make this a reasonable assumption - Weregild operates like this in the Salic Code, social status determines value. We also have laws 31 and 32 for payment in kind for offenses that deprive the aggrieved of food, which is a recognition of the direct effect - in a famine, the silver may have a lesser value than the lost food, and I'd suggest that labour would be the same - depriving the victim of the slave's labour isn't (ideally) a matter of just paying silver, as the value of the labour at eg. harvest would be correspondingly increased. I'm going to add this as a possible explanation in a note as it seems likely, but if anyone thinks this is too conjectural by all means let me know. VeritasVox (talk) 03:17, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Code or Ur-Nammu found in Sippar?

Does anyone have the best reference. I found a placeholder from a quick search, I have not had time to read it carefully yet. Please replace with the better reference if known. Thanks!Wiki-proofer-and-tagger (talk) 07:29, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

The placeholder turned out to be a good reference.Wiki-proofer-and-tagger (talk) 08:26, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Shekels

Is it worth explaining that shekels/mina were units of value but not actual currency, like the saxon geld system or egyptian deben? Or is this too much explanation/spoon-feeding? VeritasVox (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 03:05, 25 May 2018 (UTC)