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2 results

  • 2 - Law as Text

  • Edited by Caroline Humfress, University of St Andrews, Scotland, David Ibbetson, University of Cambridge, Patrick Olivelle, University of Texas, Austin
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Comparative History of Ancient Law
    Published online:
    09 May 2024
    Print publication:
    30 May 2024, pp 20-72

  • Summary

    In this chapter we treat law as inextricably connected to a text. We examine the ways in which laws and other elements of the legal process, including documents, procedural records, and judicial opinions and commentaries, are produced, preserved, transmitted and communicated to various audiences in ancient Greece and Rome, the ancient Near East and Egypt, ancient India and ancient China. We include discussions of when and how texts first emerged in these societies, the materials on which they were written and preserved, and other special features of their written texts, such as language, syntax, degree of precision, and organization and codification. We also examine these aspects of secondary legal texts, including historical accounts and reports, literature, philosophical, religious and other intellectual works, non-legal documents, instructional materials and visual ‘texts’, to see how these contributed to the understanding of law as text.