BABYLONIAN LAW. That the Sumerians, the earliest inhabitants of Babylonia, had long lived under the rule of State law is to be inferred not only from the great antiquity of their settled dwelling in cities, but from the survival of certain very early documents concerned with sales of land and slaves. The inscriptions of Urukagina, king of Lagash (about 2600 B.c.), relate his efforts to impose respect for earlier customs and to curb the rapacity of priests and officials in oppressing the poor with illegal extortions. There is a direct reference to legal proceedings in Gudea's account (about 2400 B.c.) of a solemn occasion at Lagash, when the business of the courts was suspended, and dis traint was not permitted. That no actual laws have survived from these early periods is doubtless due simply to the omission, probably deliberate, to cast them into writing. Like other sci ences in Babylonia, law was jealously guarded in the oral tradi tion of the learned, but there is no need to suppose that it did not already exist in a developed form. As it is, the first actual records of proceedings in court belong to the Third Dynasty of Ur (about 2200 B.c.). They all begin with the phrase "judgment rendered," and are concerned generally with disputes arising out of sales, inheritances, gifts, or divorce. The courts were presided over by two or more mashkim ("watchers"), among whom were sometimes to be found the city governor or a royal delegate. When the claim had been made "in the king's name" and rebutted, the case was settled by an oath taken either by one of the parties or by a witness. Shortly after this specimens of actual Sumerian laws begin to appear, doubtless older than the earliest copies which belong to about 2000 B.C. To the same period must also be ascribed the collection of legal phrases and extracts from ancient codes called and ittisliu, which has preserved the seven "Sumerian Family Laws"; these concern the relations of adoptive parents and sons, divorce, and the hire of a slave whose services are afterwards lost. Upon three tablets (about 2000 B.C.) are inscribed some 25 laws in the Sumerian language, taken from a larger collection. No less than six of these laws concern family relations; three of them correspond closely with provisions in Hammurabi's Code, the rest do not appear there., Four more deal with slavery; it is decreed that the master of a runaway may claim another slave or 25 shekels of silver from anyone harbouring him. There are also pro visions concerning adoption, injuries caused to pregnant women, liability of ox-herds for damage to their charges, the care of gardens, the obligations of neighbours, and false accusation. In general, these laws have much in common with the Code, and well illustrate the selective rather than creative character of Ham murabi's work.