Ernest de Sarzec (1832-1901), a French archaeologist recognized for discovering evidence of Sumerian civilization, carried out excavations in modern-day Iraq. In 1877, Sarzec found evidence of the first code of justice, issued by the Sumerian king Urukagina of Lagash around 2300 BC. Perhaps the first prototype of a government law, this document itself has not yet been discovered. Nevertheless, it granted certain rights to its citizens, for example, it reduced taxes for widows and orphans and protected the poor from the usury of the rich. Many governments subsequently governed by special codes of written law. The oldest known document of this type appears to be the Code of Ur-Nammu of Ur (c. 2050 BC). Some of the most well-known ancient law codes include the Code of Lipit-Ishtar of Isin, the Code of Hammurabi of Babylonia, the Hittite Code, the Assyrian Code, and Mosaic Law. In 621 BC, the laws of the city-state of Athens which authorized the death penalty for any offense were written by a scribe named Draco. In 594 BC, Solon, the ruler of Athens, created the new Solonian Constitution. This eased the burden on workers, but it caused the ruling class to be determined by the plutocracy rather than the aristocracy. In 508 BC, Cleisthenes reformed the Athenian constitution and founded it on a democratic basis. Aristotle (c. 350 BC) was the first to establish a formal distinction between ordinary law and constitutional law, forming ideas of constitutionalism and attempting to classify the different forms of constitutional government. He explores different constitutions in his works Constitution of Athens, Politics and Nicomachean Ethics, notably those of Athens, Sparta and Carthage. Eventually, he came to the conclusion that the best constitution was a... middle of paper ......etts adopted his constitution in 1780 before the ratification of the Articles of Confederation and the United States Constitution. It is probably the oldest nominal constitution still in force, that is, one in which the document specifically declares itself to be a constitution. The United States Constitution, ratified in 1789, was influenced by the British constitutional system and the political system of the United Provinces. The document became a reference for subsequent republican and codified constitutions and is commonly considered the oldest modern, national, codified constitution in the world. The next constitutions in the world and the first in Europe were the Constitution of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth of May 3, 1791 and the French Constitution of September 3, 1791. Works cited L.LC, 2008, Constitutions for everything you know, 1st ed., Edition Wireframe,