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Ur-Nammu, an ancient Sumerian ruler, formulated the first extant law code,
consisting of casuistic statements, in the 22nd century BC. King Hammurabi codified
and inscribed Babylonian law in stone around 1760 BC. The Codex Hammurabi was
created when Hammurabi placed several copies of his law code as stelae throughout
the kingdom of Babylon for all to see. British Assyriologists discovered the most
intact copy of these stelae in the 19th century. It has since been fully transliterated
and translated into various languages, including English, German, and French.
There is no single word in Ancient Greek for "law" as an abstract concept, instead of
distinguishing between divine law (thémis), human decree (nomos), and custom
(DK).