Chapter 1 provides essential orientation for the rest of the volume’s contents. It begins by introducing some key issues including recent attempts to define ‘law’ and the challenges of undertaking a comparative history of ancient law (past and present). The next section moves on to introducing the different types of source material covered in the volume, introducing seven ‘rough categories’ of evidence: normative texts; commentaries; documentary records; ‘reports’ or ‘records’ of ‘cases’; portrayals of legal processes, and model forensic speeches; ritual forms; and ‘law’ in other forms of text. The final part of the chapter gives an overview of the major features and specific historical contexts for the principal legal traditions, intended as both introduction and information to be referred back to when consulting the volume as a whole.

Chapter 12 concludes the Cambridge Comparative History of Ancient Law by drawing out a set of fundamental comparisons, both differences and similarities, from the volume’s previous chapters, in addition to offering further reflections on the field of ‘ancient law’ itself. The chapter opens by comparing and contrasting the Cambridge Comparative History of Ancient Law to earlier historiography, underscoring its unique contribution to existing scholarship: developed through collaborative work and drawing upon numerous specialist traditions and technical expertise, across a pan-Eurasian research field. The chapter then moves on to a broader discussion of ‘Mapping the Ancient Legal Cosmos’ and ‘Ordering Ancient Associations’, pinpointing the specific connections between ethics, law and statecraft that can be observed across the ancient source material. The chapter concludes by suggesting several answers to a provocative, but fundamental, question: What is ‘Ancient’ about ‘Ancient Law’?.

This chapter will introduce the book, discussing the existing literature and placing the book in the context of legal history studies and comparative law studies. It will provide a historical and conceptual framework for reading the subsequent chapters.