by C. H. W.
About this book
Compelling and authoritative, Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters by C. H. W. Johns unlocks the legal and social world of ancient Mesopotamia with clarity and scholarly care. Johns surveys the development of Babylonian and Assyrian law from the earliest codes through the famous Code of Hammurabi to later legal practice, examining courts, judges, criminal and civil procedure, family law, property, slavery, temple functions, and commercial contracts. Interwoven with this legal analysis is a rich epistolary section: royal decrees and private letters — from Hammurabi and his successors to Assyrian kings like Sennacherib — that bring administrative life and personal concerns vividly to life. Drawn from cuneiform tablets and grounded in historical context, the work illuminates social organization, education, inheritance, wages, and trade in ancient states while providing useful appendices on chronology, weights and measures, and bibliography.
Ideal for students of history, legal scholars, classicists, and general listeners fascinated by ancient civilizations, this non-fiction history and epistolary collection makes the institutions and voices of Babylon and Assyria accessible and compelling in audiobook form.
