of laws. The name of "Sumerian Family Laws" has been
given to certain sections.(13) Others seem to have been extracted from a
Sumerian work on agriculture, with which Hesiod's _Works and Days_ has
been compared. But at present we are not in possession of the complete
works from which these extracts are taken.

Such as they are, they have a value beyond that of enabling us to read
Sumerian documents. They often afford evidence of customs and information
which we get nowhere else.(14) The information given by them will be
utilized in the subsequent portions of this work. Their translation here
would serve no purpose, since they are very disconnected, but an example
may be of interest. One section reads, "He fastens the buckets, suspends
the pole, and draws up the water." This is a vivid picture of the working
of a watering-machine, from which we learn its nature as we could not from
its name only.(15)

(M13) Legal documents constitute by far the larger portion of the
inscriptions which have come down to us from every period of Babylonian
and Assyrian history. In the library of Ashurbanipal alone they are
exceeded by the letters and even more by the works dealing with astrology
and omens. In some periods, however, we have only a few inscriptions from
monuments, or bricks.

(M14) To some extent the term "contracts," which has commonly been applied
to them, is misleading. The use of the term certainly was due to a
fundamental misunderstanding, they being once considered as contracts to
furnish goods. They were even thought to be promises to pay, which passed
from hand to hand, like our checks, and so formed a species of "clay
money." These views were both partially true, but do not cover the whole
ground.

They were binding legal agreements, sealed and witnessed. They were
binding only on the parties named in them. They were drawn up by
professional scribes who wrote the whole of the document, even the names
of the witnesses. Hence it is inaccurate to speak of them as "signed" by
anyone but the scribe, who often added his name at the end of the list of
witnesses. The parties and witnesses did impress their own seals at one
period, but later one seal, or two at most, served for all. It is not
clear whose seal was then used. But the document usually declares it to be
the seal of the party resigning possession.

(M15) As to external form, most of those which may be called "deeds"
consist of small pillow-shaped, or rectang