# Lesson 1: Law and Royal Inscriptions

In this lesson, we will explore the formal language of royal decrees and legal collections, such as the famous Laws of Hammurabi.

## Core Texts to Read
> **PLACEHOLDER:** Please insert primary text reading here from a publication (e.g., excerpts from the Code of Hammurabi prologue, epilogue, or specific laws). 
> *Suggested citation*: Roth, M. T. 1995. *Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor*. SBL Writings from the Ancient World Series. Scholars Press. Keep sections that highlight conditional sentences (`šumma`).

## Grammatical Focus (Reference to Appendix)
While we focus on the reading, texts in this genre typically employ:
- Conditional Sentences (šumma clauses)
- G-Preterite and G-Perfect
- The status constructus for genitive relationships.

## Digital Methods
> **PLACEHOLDER:** Describe a digital method here to parse legal texts (e.g., regex for conditional clauses, or tagging conditional nodes using an NLP pipeline).