Beginnings: one book to rule them all

The earliest libraries, to use the term in the broadest sense possible, were collections of administrative records kept by rulers in the Middle East region starting from about 3000 BC. The honour of the earliest "book" is usually given to The Epic Of Gilgamesh, written in ancient Mesopotamia (now modern Iraq) around 2150-2000 BC.

Another "book" from Mesopotamia, written at about the same time as The Epic Of Gilgamesh, was The Code of Ur-Nammu. It is the oldest known tablet containing a "law code" yet discovered and as such is the beginning of this brief overview of law books and law libraries.

The Code of Ur-Nammu was written on clay tablets in Sumerian, it contains 57 laws. Each law is divided into two parts, the crime committed, and the proscribed punishment. With only a few tablets making up the totality of the written law, the job of the first "law librarian" must have been quite easy.


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Research notes..

This was originally intended to briefly mention the code of hammurabi, but soon discovered that that is no longer considered the oldest code of law. Pretty awkward, not sure if its where I want to start...

Ur-Nammu. Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th Edition, 1/1/2009