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The Library

Forty Centuries of Christian Writing

1780 works catalogued century by century, from the literature the Bible was written among to the present — each with a note on what it is, why it lasted, and where to read it.

2100–2001 BC

The Twenty-First Century BC

1 work

c. 2100 BC

Sumerian

The Laws of Ur-Nammu

The court of Ur-Nammu

The oldest surviving law code, opening with a king who claims to have removed the crooked measure and stopped the powerful from seizing the widow's ox, then setting fines in silver for injuries — a broken bone, a severed nose — rather than demanding the matching mutilation.

Mesopotamian · Law codeExodusDeuteronomyLeviticusRead elsewhere