almost all of the period in question, until the mid-first millennium.^17
Empirical evidence supports the theoretical picture. The huge
quantity of records in cuneiform give us a reliable control, and the
most striking feature of the cuneiform legal material is its static
nature. The first legal documents reveal a mature system that had
been developed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years earlier. The
basic pattern of contractual transactions found in the early Sumerian
legal documents survives, differences of detail notwithstanding, through-
out the cuneiform record. Continuity is no less evident in the law
codes, where the same rules, tests, and distinctions recur in codes
hundreds of years apart.1.3.3 Connections
The law codes are not confined to a single culture. Their wide dis-
persal beyond the bounds of Mesopotamia attests to the intellectual
power of their methodology and ideas. They are only one part of
the spread of Sumero-Akkadian learning through the medium of
cuneiform, which by the second millennium dominated all parts of
the region except Egypt, which also did not remain entirely unaffected.
The dominance was particularly strong in law, as attested by the
universal practice in non-Akkadian-speaking cities of drafting legal
documents not in the native language but in Akkadian. In areas
where cuneiform prevailed, therefore, it is reasonable to speak of a
common legal culture, at the level of legal science, both in its the-
oretical and practical manifestations.
It is possible to do so also beyond the sphere of cuneiform cul-
ture. The law codes of Israel in the first millennium are deeply
embedded in the cuneiform law code tradition. Part of their depen-
dency may be attributed to the conquest of the region by Meso-
potamian powers, Assyria and Babylonia, but part has older roots.
Even Egypt does not escape. For example, the technical phrase “his
heart is satisfied” may be traced in contracts across the cuneiform(^17) It is no coincidence that during the first millennium major intellectual and
institutional shifts characteristic of a so-called “axial age” occur, with the rise of
monotheism, skepticism, and republican and democratic forms of government (see
Jaspers, Vom Ursprung.. ., chap. 1). Developments in the law follow, as ever, with
some time lag. For a trenchant critique of this “developmental” approach, see Roth,
“Reading Mesopotamian Law Cases.. .” This writer cheerfully admits to being a
developmentalist.
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