The Laws of Eshnunna

Abstract

The laws of the Old-Babylonian kingdom of Eshnunna (LE) were discovered in 1945 and 1947, on two parallel tablets, during excavations on the outskirts of Baghdad. In 1948 a first edition, with English translation, was published by Professor Albrecht Goetze, of Yale University. Since then the LE have been translated into many languages, major and minor, and a considerable literature has grown up around them. Goetze himself has repeatedly returned to the Laws of Eshnunna. His standard edition of the LE, now in general use by scholars, was published in 1956.Eshnunna, to the east of the river Tigris, flourished during the early second millennium B.C. Much of its history is as yet uncertain. Here it will suffice to note that it finally fell victim to the expansionist policies pursued with success by Hammurabi of Babylon, during the fourth decade of his reign. The date of promulgation of the LE is uncertain, but it is at least agreed that they precede the Code of Hammurabi, though one cannot know by how much. It is then a fair guess that they were issued in the course of the 18th century B.C.; thus they constitute the earliest collection known at present, of legal rules in Akkadian.