Reforms of Urukagina of Lagash
- Date
- c. 2350 BCE
- Category
- Politics & governance
- Region
- Mesopotamia (Lagash, southern Sumer, modern Iraq)
- Era
- Ancient Civilizations
- Significance
Around 2350 BCE, Urukagina (also read Uruinimgina), the last ruler of the First Dynasty of the Sumerian city-state of Lagash, promulgated a body of administrative and social reforms that are among the earliest recorded measures of legal and social justice in human history.
Inscribed on clay cones and tablets recovered from ancient Lagash, the texts contrast the abuses of his predecessor Lugalanda's regime with his own corrective measures, condemning officials who seized the property of widows, orphans, and the poor. The reforms reduced or abolished extortionate fees and taxes, capped charges for burials and other services, curbed the power of temple overseers and bureaucrats, restored misappropriated temple lands, and freed citizens held in debt bondage through acts of amnesty. The inscriptions contain one of the first known uses of a word for 'freedom' (Sumerian ama-gi), and the reforms are often cited as a precursor to later Mesopotamian law collections such as the codes of Ur-Nammu and Hammurabi. Though scholars debate whether the reforms constituted a unified law code or a reform edict, they remain a landmark in the documented history of governance and social policy.
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Empires active in c. 2350 BCE
- Egyptian Old Kingdom2686 BCE – 2181 BCE
- Indus Valley (Harappan) Civilization2600 BCE – 1900 BCE
- Elamite Kingdom2700 BCE – 539 BCE
Related politics & governance events
- Sargon of Akkad founds the world's first empirec. 2334 BCE
- Code of Ur-Nammu, the oldest surviving law codec. 2100 BCE
- Rise of Kerma as an Urban Centre in Nubiac. 2500 BCE
- Mentuhotep II reunifies Egypt and founds the Middle Kingdomc. 2040 BCE
- Building of the First Palace at Knossosc. 1900 BCE
- Senusret III's Nubian campaigns and administrative centralisationc. 1850 BCE
Further reading
The wider story
The Ancient Near East: A Very Short Introduction
Concise, expert intro to Mesopotamia, Persia and the Near East before Alexander.
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