Translated

by L. W. King

Information supplied

by

Yale Law School

 

The Code of Laws 51 - 100

51.   If he have no money to repay, then he shall pay in corn or sesame in place of the money as rent for what he received from the merchant, according to the royal tariff.

52.   If the cultivator do not plant corn or sesame in the field, the debtor's contract is not weakened.

53.   If any one be too lazy to keep his dam in proper condition, and does not so keep it; if then the dam break and all the fields be flooded, then shall he in whose dam the break occurred be sold for money, and the money shall replace the corn which he has caused to be ruined.

54.   If he be not able to replace the corn, then he and his possessions shall be divided among the farmers whose corn he has flooded.

55.   If any one open his ditches to water his crop, but is careless, and the water flood the field of his neighbor, then he shall pay his neighbor corn for his loss.

56.   If a man let in the water, and the water overflow the plantation of his neighbor, he shall pay ten gur of corn for every ten gan of land.

57.   If a shepherd, without the permission of the owner of the field, and without the knowledge of the owner of the sheep, lets the sheep into a field to graze, then the owner of the field shall harvest his crop, and the shepherd, who had pastured his flock there without permission of the owner of the field, shall pay to the owner twenty gur of corn for every ten gan.

58.   If after the flocks have left the pasture and been shut up in the common fold at the city gate, any shepherd let them into a field and they graze there, this shepherd shall take possession of the field which he has allowed to be grazed on, and at the harvest he must pay sixty gur of corn for every ten gan.

59.   If any man, without the knowledge of the owner of a garden, fell a tree in a garden he shall pay half a mina in money.

60.   If any one give over a field to a gardener, for him to plant it as a garden, if he work at it, and care for it for four years, in the fifth year the owner and the gardener shall divide it, the owner taking his part in charge.

61.   If the gardener has not completed the planting of the field, leaving one part unused, this shall be assigned to him as his.

62.   If he do not plant the field that was given over to him as a garden, if it be arable land (for corn or sesame) the gardener shall pay the owner the produce of the field for the years that he let it lie fallow, according to the product of neighboring fields, put the field in arable condition and return it to its owner.

63.   If he transform waste land into arable fields and return it to its owner, the latter shall pay him for one year ten gur for ten gan.

64.   If any one hand over his garden to a gardener to work, the gardener shall pay to its owner two-thirds of the produce of the garden, for so long as he has it in possession, and the other third shall he keep.

65.   If the gardener do not work in the garden and the product fall off, the gardener shall pay in proportion to other neighboring gardens.

[The text for laws 66 through 99 is missing]

100.   . . .  interest for the money, as much as he has received, he shall give a note therefor, and on the day, when they settle, pay to the merchant.

 
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.Phillip Martin
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