Code of Lipit-Ishtar

The Code of Lipit-Ishtar is a Sumerian-language cuneiform law code issued by Lipit-Ishtar, fifth king of the Isin dynasty in Lower Mesopotamia, in the nineteenth century BCE. It survives as a prologue, roughly fifty legal provisions and an epilogue, the standard three-part structure of Mesopotamian royal law codes, covering boat rental, agriculture, slavery, false testimony, foster care, apprenticeship, marriage and livestock rental. It is the second-oldest known extant legal code after Ur-Nammu's, and scholars treat it as a direct forerunner of the Code of Hammurabi roughly a century later.