Eshnunnahttp://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/EshnunnaEshnunna (l'odierna Tell Asmar, nei pressi di Ba'quba) è la trascrizione dell'antico nome di una città-stato sumerica nella bassa Mesopotamia. Anche se situata nella valle di Diyala, a nord-est del territorio di Sumer propriamente detto, la città si trovò sicuramente sotto l'influenza della cultura sumerica. I resti dell'antica città sono oggi preservati nel monticello di Tell Asmar, scavato da una missione americana guidata da Henri Frankfort negli anni Trenta.
Laws of Eshnunnahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_EshnunnaThe Laws of Eshnunna (abrv. LE) are inscribed on two cuneiform tablets discovered in Tell Abū Harmal, Baghdad, Iraq. The Iraqi Directorate of Antiquities headed by Taha Baqir unearthed two parallel sets of tablets in 1945 and 1947. The two tablets are separate copies of an older source and date back to ca. 1930 BC. The differences between the Code of Hammurabi and the Laws of Eshnunna significantly contributed to illuminating the development of ancient and cuneiform law. Eshnunna was north of Ur on the Tigris River and became politically important after the fall of the third dynasty of Ur, founded by Ur-Nammu.
In distinction from the other Mesopotamian collections of law, this one got its name after the city where it had originated – Eshnunna, located on the bank of the Diyala River, tributary to the Tigris. This collection of laws is not a real systemized codex; nearly sixty of its sections are preserved. The Laws are written in Akkadian and consist of two tablets which are marked with A and B. In 1948, Albrecht Goetze of the Yale University had translated and published them. In some sources the Laws of Eshnunna are mentioned as the Laws of Bilalama due to the belief that the Eshnunnian ruler probably was their originator, but Goetze maintained that tablet B was originated under the reign of Dadusha. The text of the prologue is broken at the point where the ruler who promulgated the laws was specified.
Albrecht Goetze has noticed the specific style of expression. The laws were composed in a mode that facilitated memorizing. A distinguished Israeli scientist and one of the foremost experts on this collection of laws, Reuven Yaron of the University of Jerusalem concerning this matter stated: “What matters to me – and might have mattered to those who fashioned them almost 4000 years ago – is the ease of remembering the text.”
The conditional sentence (“If A then B” – as it also is the case with the other Mesopotamian laws) is an attribute of this codification. In 23 paragraphs, it appears in the form šumma awilum – “If a man…” After the disposition, a precise sanction follows, e.g. LU42(A): “If a man bit and severed the nose of a man, one mina silver he shall weigh out.”
The Laws clearly show signs of social stratification, mainly focussing on two different classes: the muškenum and awilum. The audience of the Laws of Eshnunna is more extensive than in the case of the earlier cuneiform codifications: awilum – free men and women (mar awilim and marat awilim), muškenum, wife (aššatum), son (maru), slaves of both sexes – male (wardum) and female (amtum) – which are not only objects of law as in classical slavery, and delicts where the victims were slaves have been sanctioned, and other class designations as ubarum, apþarum, mudum that are not ascertained.
Reuven Yaron has divided the offences of the Laws of Eshnunna into five groups. The articles of the first group had to be collected from all over the Laws and the articles of the other four were roughly ordered one after the other:
1. Theft and related offences,
2. False distraint,
3. Sexual offences,
4. Bodily injuries,
5. Damages caused by a goring ox and comparable cases.
The majority of these offences were penalized with pecuniary fines (an amount of silver), but some serious offences such as burglary, murder, and sexual offences were penalized with death. It seems that the capital punishment was avoidable (in contrast to the Code of Hammurabi), because of the standard formulation: “It is a case of life … he shall die”.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lois_d%27EshnunnaLes Lois d'Eshnunna sont un recueil législatif de la Mésopotamie ancienne, daté de la première moitié du xviiie siècle av. J.-C., rédigé en akkadien. Elles sont connues par deux tablettes exhumées à Tell Harmal (l'antique Shaduppum), et une troisième retrouvée à Tell Haddad, qui en préservent presque l'intégralité. Suivant une datation donnée par une des deux premières, il semblerait qu'il faille attribuer ce recueil à l'initiative du roi Dadusha d'Eshnunna, alors l'un des plus puissants souverains de la Mésopotamie. La rédaction de ce texte serait donc contemporaine de la prise du pouvoir par Hammurabi à Babylone, ce qui en ferait un prédécesseur immédiat du Code de Hammurabi, qui présente de nombreux points communs avec lui. Les Lois d'Eshnunna ne sont néanmoins pas qualifiées de « Code » car il leur manque un prologue et un épilogue considérés comme caractéristiques de ce type de texte ; il est possible qu'il y en ait eu à l'origine, mais les copies sur tablettes ne les ont pas préservés. L'édiction de ce recueil de dispositions législatives est peut-être liée à des mesures économiques prises par le roi d'Eshnunna, comme les édits de rémission (andurarum) courants à cette époque qui annulaient les dettes contractées dans le royaume.
Le texte a été divisé par ses éditeurs modernes en une soixantaine de « lois », qui comme pour les autres textes législatifs mésopotamiens ne sont pas forcément des lois au sens moderne du texte avec une portée impérative, mais ont pu avoir plutôt un rôle de traité de justice à destination de ceux qui devaient rendre des décisions lors d'affaires judiciaires. Quoi qu'il en soit, elles concernent divers domaines. Les deux premiers articles donnent des correspondances de prix entre différents moyens de paiement et autres produits courants (grain d'orge, argent, huile, laine, cuivre bitume, etc.). Les suivants concernent la location de chariots tirés par un bœuf et de bateaux, puis les litiges pouvant survenir suite à la location d'un bateau, et ensuite la location de différents travailleurs agricoles. Viennent par la suite des litiges sur les propriétés, les affaires familiales (héritage, mariage), les taux d'intérêt, les esclaves, les coups et blessures, etc.