Code of Hammurabi

The Code of Hammurabi. Babylon , c. 1755–1750 BC. Detail.

Detail of the cuneiform law text columns in Hammurabi's code. The Code of... more

by Weston Westmoreland

Title

Code of Hammurabi

Artist

Weston Westmoreland

Medium

Photograph

Description

The Code of Hammurabi. Babylon , c. 1755–1750 BC. Detail.

Detail of the cuneiform law text columns in Hammurabi's code. The Code of Hammurabi is a Babylonian legal text composed some 3800 years ago. It is the longest, best-organised, and best-preserved legal text from the ancient Near East. Written in Akkadian (an old Babylonian dialect), the code is attributed to Hammurabi, sixth king of the First Dynasty of Babylon. The text was inscribed on a basalt or diorite stele over7 ft tall. It was discovered in 1901 in Susa, present-day Iran, where it had been taken as plunder six hundred years after its creation. The text has been copied and studied by Mesopotamian scribes for over a millennium. The stele casn be now found at the Louvre Museum in Paris.

The Code is composed of 4,130 lines of cuneiform text: one fifth contains a prologue and epilogue in poetic style, while the remaining four fifths contain what are generally called the laws. In the prologue, Hammurabi claims to have been granted his rule by the gods "to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak". The laws are casuistic, expressed as "if ... then" conditional sentences. Their scope is broad, including criminal law, family law, property law, commercial law, etc.

Modern scholars responded to the Code with admiration, at its perceived fairness and respect for the rule of law, and at the complexity of Old Babylonian society. There was also much discussion of its influence on the Mosaic Law. Scholars quickly identified lex talionis, the "eye for an eye" principle, as underlying the two collections. Debate among Assyriologists has since centered around several aspects of the Code: its purpose, its underlying principles, its language, and its relation to earlier and later law collections.

Hammurabi is regarded as an important figure in the history of law, and the document as a true legal code. The U.S. Capitol has a relief portrait of Hammurabi alongside those of other lawgivers.

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Weston Westmoreland

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May 18th, 2021