Have you heard of Ur Nammu? He was the ruler of Ur(part of Mesopotamia) about 4,000 years ago. He developed a set of laws long before the more famous code of Hammurabi (an eye for an eye). Recently translated cuneiform texts present us with the earliest known written version of the law code of Ur Nammu.
What I love about this law code is that it specifically mentions working women. That’s right, there’s a specific law about taxing any beer a female tavern keeping put on your tab during the summer. (And you thought current IRS regulations were nit-picky.)
Tags: cuneiform, hammurabi, mesopotamia, tax code, ur nammu