HIS 368
Anc Middle East Law/Society · 3 credits · Spring 2027
Requirements
Prerequisite: ENG 201 and any HIS course of the 200-level or above
About this course
This course studies the legal traditions shared by ancient Middle Eastern societies in the second and first millenniums BCE. By reading a wide variety of legal texts? law codes, royal edicts, trial records, land sale documents, wills, marriage contracts, and narratives about the law?students will reconstruct aspects of the legal tradition common to the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, ancient Mesopotamia, and ancient Egypt. The course will examine administrative and constitutional law, litigation, personal status, family, property and inheritance, contract, and crime and delict. It will also explore the function of the law in ancient Middle Eastern culture and society, its implementation and enforcement, its relationship to structures of governance, and its literary and visual portrayal. Students will complete the course with a research paper demonstrating independent analysis of source documents situated in appropriate scholarship.
No sections have been posted for this course in this term yet.