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law code
law
Also known as: codification, legal code
law code, a more or less systematic and comprehensive written statement of laws. Law codes were compiled by the most ancient peoples. The oldest extant evidence for a code is tablets from the ancient archives of the city of Ebla (now at Tell Mardikh, Syria), which date to about 2400 bc. The best known ancient code is the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi. The Romans began keeping legal records, such as the Law of the Twelve Tables (451–450 bc), but there was no major codification of Roman law until the Code of Justinian (ad 529–565), which was compiled long after the ...(100 of 477 words)