The Hittite laws, also known as the Code of the Nesilim, constitute an ancient legal code dating from – 1500 BCE. They have been preserved on a number of Hittite

cuneiform Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform script ...

tablets found at

Hattusa Hattusa, also Hattuşa, Ḫattuša, Hattusas, or Hattusha, was the capital of the Hittites, Hittite Empire in the late Bronze Age during two distinct periods. Its ruins lie near modern Boğazkale, Turkey (originally Boğazköy) within the great ...

( CTH 291–292, listing 200 laws). Copies have been found written in Old Hittite as well as in Middle and Late Hittite, indicating that they had validity throughout the duration of the

Hittite Empire The Hittites () were an Anatolian peoples, Anatolian Proto-Indo-Europeans, Indo-European people who formed one of the first major civilizations of the Bronze Age in West Asia. Possibly originating from beyond the Black Sea, they settled in mo ...

(ca. 1650–1100 BCE). The Hittite laws reflected the empire's social structure, sense of justice, and morality, addressing common outlawed actions such as assault, theft, murder, witchcraft, and divorce, among others. The code is particularly notable due to a number of its provisions, covering social issues that included the humane treatment of slaves. Although they were considered lesser than free men, the slaves under the code were allowed to choose whomever they wanted to marry, buy property, open businesses, and purchase their freedom. In comparison with the

Code of Hammurabi The Code of Hammurabi is a Babylonian legal text composed during 1755–1750 BC. It is the longest, best-organized, and best-preserved legal text from the ancient Near East. It is written in the Old Babylonian dialect of Akkadian language, Akkadi ...

or the Middle Assyrian Laws, the Code of Nesilim also provided less-severe punishments for the code's violations.

Example

§189 If a man has sexual relations with his own mother, it is an unpermitted sexual pairing. If a man has sexual relations with (his) daughter, it is an unpermitted sexual pairing. If a man has sexual relations with (his) son, it is an unpermitted sexual pairing.§

Origin and development

While it is not known who exactly authored the legal document, some historians believe that its source was someone important or of high power in the Hittite society and this could even be a king. Changes were apparently made to penalties at least twice: firstly, the ''kara – kinuna'' changes, which generally reduced the penalties found in a former, but apparently unpreserved, 'proto-edition'; and secondly, the 'Late Period' changes to penalties in the already-modified Old Hittite version.S. M. Jauss, ''Kasuistik – Systematik – Reflexion über Recht'', in Journal for Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Law 21, 2015, 185 pp. The Hittite laws were kept in use for some 500 years, and many copies show that, other than changes in grammar, what might be called the 'original edition' with its apparent disorder, was copied slavishly; no attempt was made to 'tidy up' by placing even obvious afterthoughts in a more appropriate position. Like the

, the Hittite laws resemble many of the laws found in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Deuteronomy 22:29.

Corpus

The laws are formulated as case laws; they start with a condition, and a ruling follows, e.g. ''"If anyone tears off the ear of a male or female slave, he shall pay 3

shekel A shekel or sheqel (; , , plural , ) is an ancient Mesopotamian coin, usually of silver. A shekel was first a unit of weight—very roughly 11 grams (0.35 ozt)—and became currency in ancient Tyre, Carthage and Hasmonean Judea. Name The wo ...

s of silver".'' The laws show an aversion to the

death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in s ...

; the usual penalty for serious offenses being enslavement to forced labour. They are preserved on two separate tablets, each with approximately 200 clauses, the first categorised as being 'of a man'; the second 'of a vine'; a third set may have existed. The laws may be categorised into eight groups of similar clauses. These are separated for the most part by two types of seemingly orphaned clauses: Sacral or incantatory clauses, and afterthoughts. This corpus and the classification scheme are based on Dewhirst (2004).Howard Dewhirst (2004), Master of Arts dissertation on Hittite law, supervised by Dr Trevor R. Bryce, University of Queensland. * I Aggression and

assault In the terminology of law, an assault is the act of causing physical harm or consent, unwanted physical contact to another person, or, in some legal definitions, the threat or attempt to do so. It is both a crime and a tort and, therefore, may ...

: Clauses 1 - 24 * II

Marital relationship Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children (if any), and b ...

s: Clauses 26 - 38 * III Obligations and service - TUKUL: Clauses 39 - 56 * IV Assaults on property and

theft Theft (, cognate to ) is the act of taking another person's property or services without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. The word ''theft'' is also used as a synonym or informal shor ...

: Clauses 57 - 144 * V Contracts and prices: Clauses 145 - 161 * VI Sacral matters: Clauses 162 - 173 * VII

Contract A contract is an agreement that specifies certain legally enforceable rights and obligations pertaining to two or more parties. A contract typically involves consent to transfer of goods, services, money, or promise to transfer any of thos ...

s and

tariff A tariff or import tax is a duty (tax), duty imposed by a national Government, government, customs territory, or supranational union on imports of goods and is paid by the importer. Exceptionally, an export tax may be levied on exports of goods ...

s: Clauses 176 - 186 * VIII

Sexual relationship An intimate relationship is an interpersonal relationship that involves emotional or physical closeness between people and may include sexual intimacy and feelings of Romance (love), romance or love. Intimate relationships are Interdependence ...

s: Clauses 187 - 200 ** §187, §188, §199 and §200 criminalise bestiality (except with horses and mules).'' Peake's commentary on the Bible'', Revised Edition (1962), ad (E-book edition) The death penalty was a common punishment among sexual crimes. ** §190 and §191 stipulate that if a man and a woman 'came together sexually willingly', and ' adintercourse', 'there shall be no punishment'. These are some of the oldest examples of sexual consent in law.

External links

The Code of the Nesilim, c. 1650-1500 BCE (Excerpts)

Literature

* E. Neu, StBoT 26 (1983) * Harry Angier Hoffner Jr., ''The Laws of the Hittites: a Critical Edition'' (DMOA 23) – Leiden, New York, Köln 1997

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hittite Laws

Laws Law is a set of rules that are created and are law enforcement, enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a Socia ...