Successive Mesopotamian kings appreciated the potential of written rules and used them to regulate their societies, create predictability for their merchants, and address social problems. The substance may often have been mundane, specifying penalties for basic crimes, compensation for injuries, and rules for contracts and family relations, but they created a new form of order. By defining classes and professions, rights and duties, like the scribes who developed standard forms for commercial relations, they were creating an order of rules and categories.
