David Ibbetson – Does Hittite Law Matter?
Duration: 1 hour 31 mins
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| Description: | This talk will point to ways in which the Near East legal systems perhaps mark an important step forward in the development of law in the world before the rise of Greece and Rome. |
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| Created: | 2014-01-23 01:47 | ||
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| Collection: | Clare Hall Colloquium | ||
| Publisher: | Clare Hall | ||
| Copyright: | Clare Hall | ||
| Language: | eng (English) | ||
| Distribution: |
World
(downloadable)
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| Keywords: | Hittites; Near East; Law; Ancient Law; Legals systems; Bronze age; | ||
| Credits: |
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| Categories: |
iTunes - History - Ancient History iTunes - History - Middle Eastern History iTunes - Law & Politics - Law |
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| Explicit content: | No | ||
| Abstract: | The Hittites were a Bronze Age Indo-European people from central Anatolia. They are better known in the popular imagination for their prowess in battle than for their civilisation, but in the last century cuneiform texts from the seventeenth to thirteenth centuries BCE have revealed the contents of their law code together with other peripheral information about their legal system.
This talk will put the Hittites in the context of the legal systems of the Ancient Near East and point to ways in which they perhaps mark an important step forward in the development of law in the world before the rise of Greece and Rome. It will concentrate on two aspects in particular, the rules relating to homicides and sexual offences, where we can see clear similarities to the legal systems of the modern world, but at the same time differences in the way in which the issues are formulated. |
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