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Mesopotamia produced the world’s earliest known civilization, Sumer, as well as the oldest known system of writing, cuneiform. The clay tablet shown here, which is covered with cuneiform writing, is important for another reason: it is the prologue to the Code of Hammurabi, one of the earliest legal codes, which dates to the 18th century B . C .

Iraq’s History to 1990 I n 1901 a group of French archaeologists traveled to Mesopotamia to search for the remains of an ancient civiliza- tion. As the archaeologists dug into the sun-baked earth, they hit a large object. Digging carefully, they uncovered an eight-foot- long block of black basalt. Across the face of the huge stone were words carved in a language unfamiliar to the archaeologists. It was evidence of the powerful kingdom they had sought. When the writings on the basalt slab were translated, they were found to be the laws of Hammurabi, a great ruler of Babylon who had lived around 1750 BCE . The Code of Hammurabi, as the laws are called, is one of the earliest written legal systems; it gives mod- ern students valuable insight into the structure of ancient Mesopotamian society. By the time of Hammurabi, civilization in Mesopotamia had already existed for some two and a half millennia. Mesopotamia is often called the “cradle of civilization” because archaeologists

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