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Ama-gi is a Sumerian word written ama-gi4 or . Sumerians used it to refer to release from obligations, debt, slavery, taxation, or punishment. Ama-gi has been regarded as the first known written reference to the concept of freedom, and has been used in modern times as a symbol for libertarianism.
The word originates from the noun ama "mother" (sometimes with the enclitic dative case marker ar), and the present participle gi4 "return, restore, put back", thus literally meaning "returning to mother". Assyriologist Samuel Noah Kramer has identified it as the first known written reference to the concept of freedom. Referring to its literal meaning "return to the mother", he wrote in 1963 that "we still do not know why this figure of speech came to be used for 'freedom'."
The earliest known usage of the word was in the decree of Enmetena restoring "the child to his mother and the mother to her child." By the Third Dynasty of Ur, it was used as a legal term for the manumission of individuals.
In some cuneiform texts, it is translated by the Akkadian word , meaning "freedom", "exemption" and "release from (debt) slavery".
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