Code of Hammurabi

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Code of Hammurabi

The Code of Hammurabi (Codex Hammurabi ) is a well-preserved ancient law code, created ca. 1760 BC (middle chronology) in ancient Babylon

Babylon

Babylon was a city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, sometimes considered an empire, the remains of which can be found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Governorate, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad....
.

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Discovery

The stele

Stele

A stele is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected for funerals or commemorative purposes, most usually decorated with the names and titles of the deceased or living ? inscribed, carved in relief , or painted onto the slab....
containing the Code of Hammurabi was discovered in 1901 by the Egyptologist Gustav Jéquier, a member of the expedition headed by Jacques de Morgan

Jacques de Morgan

Jean-Jacques de Morgan was a French people mining engineer , geologist and archaeologist he was the director of Antiquities in Egypt during the 19th century , and excavated in Memphis, Egypt and Dashur, providing many drawings of many Egyptians pyramids....
. The stele was discovered in what is now Khuzestan, Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran and formerly known internationally as Persian Empire until 1935, is a country in Central Eurasia, located on the northeastern shore of the Persian Gulf and the southern shore of the Caspian Sea....
(ancient Susa

Susa

Susa was an ancient city of the Elamite, Persian Empire and Parthian empires of Iran, located about 250 km east of the Tigris River.The modern town of Shush, Iran is located at the site of ancient Susa....
, Elam

Elam

Elam was an ancient civilization located in what is now southwest Iran.Elam was centered in the far west and southwest of modern-day Iran, stretching from the lowlands of Khuzestan and Ilam Province , as far as Jiroft in Kerman province and Burned City in Zabol, as well as a small part of southern Iraq....
), where it had been taken as plunder by the Elamite king Shutruk-Nahhunte in the 12th century BC. It is currently on display at the Louvre

Louvre

The Louvre Museum , located in Paris, is a historic monument, and a national museum of France. It is a central landmark, located on the Rive Droite of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement of Paris ....
Museum in Paris

Paris

Paris is the Capital of France and the country's largest city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the ?le-de-France Regions of France ....
.

Description

At the top of the stele is a bas-relief image of a Babylonian god (either Marduk

Marduk

Marduk was the Babylonian language name of a late-generation god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of the city of Babylon, who, when Babylon permanently became the political center of the Euphrates valley in the time of Hammurabi , started to slowly rise to the position of the head of the Babylonian pantheon, a position he fully acqu...
or Shamash

Shamash

Shamash was the common Akkadian language name of the Solar deity and god of justice in Babylonia and Assyria, corresponding to Mesopotamian mythology Utu....
), with the king of Babylon presenting himself to the god, with his right hand raised to his mouth as a mark of respect. The text covers the bottom portion with the laws written in Akkadian language

Akkadian language

Akkadian or Assyrian-Babylonian is a Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian language, an unrelated language isolate....
cuneiform script

Cuneiform script

Cuneiform script is one of the earliest known forms of writing system. Emerging in Sumer around the 30th century BC, with predecessors reaching into the late 4th millennium , cuneiform writing began as a system of pictography....
. The text has been broken down by translators into 282 laws, but this division is arbitrary, since the original text contains no divisional markers.

Hammurabi

Hammurabi (ruled ca. 1796 BC – 1750 BC) believed that he was chosen by the gods to deliver the law to his people. In the preface to the law code, he states, "Anu and Bel called by name me, Hammurabi, the exalted prince, who feared God, to bring about the rule of righteousness in the land."

Law

The Code of Hammurabi was one of several sets of laws in the Ancient Near East

Ancient Near East

The Ancient Near East refers to early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia , Fars Province, Elam and Medes , Anatolia , the Levant , and Ancient Egypt, from the rise of Sumer in the 4th millennium BCE until the region's conquest by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BCE, or covering both th...
. Earlier collections of laws include the Code of Ur-Nammu

Code of Ur-Nammu

The Code of Ur-Nammu is the oldest known tablet containing a law code surviving today. It was written in the Sumerian language ca. 2100-2050 BC....
, king of Ur

Ur is modern Tell el-Mukayyar, Iraq, and was a city in ancient Sumer. Once a coastal city near the mouth of the then Euphrates river on the Persian Gulf, Ur is now well inland....
(ca. 2050 BC), the Laws of Eshnunna

Laws of Eshnunna

The Laws of Eshnunna are inscribed on two broken tablets found in Tall Abu Harmal, near Baghdad, Iraq. The two tablets are separate copies of an older source and date back to ca....
(ca. 1930 BC) and the codex of Lipit-Ishtar

Lipit-Ishtar

Lipit-Ishtar , was the fifth ruler of the first dynasty of Isin, and ruled from around 1934 BCE to 1924 BCE. Some documents and royal inscriptions from his time have survived, but he is mostly known because Sumerian language hymns written in his honor, as well as a so-called legal code written in his name ,were used for school instruction for...
of Isin

ISIN

An International Securities Identification Number uniquely identifies a Security . Its structure is defined in ISO 6166. Securities for which ISINs are issued include Bond , commercial paper, equities and Warrant s....
(ca. 1870 BC)., while later ones include the Hittite laws

Hittite laws

The Hittite laws have been preserved on a number of Hittite language cuneiform script tablets found at Hattusa . Copies have been found written in Old Hittite as well as in Middle and Late Hittite, indicating that they had validity throughout the duration of the Hittite Empire ....
, the Assyrian law

Assyrian law

Assyrian law was very similar to Cuneiform law and Babylonian law, however, notably more brutal than its predecessors. The first copy of the code to come to light, dated to the reign of Tiglath-Pileser I, was discovered in the course of excavations by the German Oriental Society ....
s, and Mosaic Law. These codes come from similar cultures in a relatively small geographical area, and they have passages which resemble each other.

The code is often pointed to be a primary example of even a king not being able to change fundamental law

LAW

LAW may refer to:* Anti-tank warfare, e.g. the US Army M72 LAW or the British Army LAW 80*Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights ...
s concerning the governing of a country which was the primitive form of what is now known as a constitution

Constitution

A constitution is a system for government — often codified as a written document — that establishes the rules and principles of an autonomous political entity....
.

The Babylonians and their neighbors developed the earliest system of economics

Economics

File:Ballard Farmers' Market - vegetables.jpgEconomics is the Social sciences that studies the Production theory basics, Distribution , and Consumption of Good and Service ....
that was fixed in a legal code, using a metric

Metrics

A metric is a standard unit of measure, such as meter or mile for length, or gram or ton for weight, or more generally, part of a system of parameters, or systems of measurement, or a set of ways of quantitatively and periodically measuring, assessing, controlling or selecting a person, process, event, or institution, along with the procedure...
of various commodities. The early law codes from Sumer

Sumer

Sumer was a civilization and a historical region located in Southern Iraq , known as the Cradle of civilization. It lasted from the first settlement of Eridu in the Ubaid period through the Uruk period and the Dynastic periods until the rise of Babylon in the early 2nd millennium BC....
could be considered the first (written) economic formula, and had many attributes still in use in the current price system

Price system

In economics, a price system is any economic system that effects its distribution of goods and services by means of goods and services having prices and employing any form of money or debt tokens....
today... such as codified amounts of money

Money

Money is anything that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts. The main uses of money are as a medium of exchange, a unit of account, and a store of value....
for business deals (interest rates), fines in money for 'wrong doing', inheritance rules, laws concerning how private property is to be taxed or divided, etc.

Examples

These are the first three laws, in their entirety, of the , translated into English:

1. If any one ensnares another, putting a ban upon him, but he can not prove it, then he that ensnared him shall be put to death.

2. If any one brings an accusation against a man, and the accused goes to the river and leaps into the river, if he sinks in the river his accuser shall take possession of his house. But if the river proves that the accused is not guilty, and he escapes unhurt, then he who had brought the accusation shall be put to death, while he who leaped into the river shall take possession of the house that had belonged to his accuser.

3. If any one brings an accusation of any crime before the elders, and does not prove what he has charged, he shall, if a capital offense is charged, be put to death.

There are 282 such laws in the Code of Hammurabi, each no more than a sentence or two. The 282 laws are bracketed by a Prologue in which Hammurabi introduces himself, and an Epilogue in which he affirms his authority and sets forth his hopes and prayers for his code of laws.

Code of Hammurabi

Discovery

Description

Hammurabi

Law

Examples

See also

Bibliography

External links