It is most famous for the an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth ( lex talionis) form of punishment. It consisted of 282 laws, with punishments that varied based on social status (slaves, free men, and property owners). If the person killed was a slave, the murderer got away with a fine.įUN FACT: in the Code of Hammurabi, the so-called law of retaliation was also valid for the law concerning wine dishonest wine merchants were actually punished by being drowned in a river. Written in about 1754 BCE by the sixth king of Babylon, Hammurabi, the Code was written on stone stele and clay tablets. If a nobleman's son was killed by another person of the same rank, he could avenge himself by killing the perpetrator's son in return. In short, "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth!"Įquality of the punishment only affected people of the same social level. The norm governing the majority of the laws is the so-called law of retaliation, in other words the right to inflict damage in equal measure on those who intentionally harm you. The content covers various areas of human coexistence and different categories of offenses. The text you see on the lower part is in cuneiform characters, drawn in a very elegant hand, and contains 282 laws subdivided into articles. As you can see, the two figures are portrayed in a rigid, square fashion, very "unnatural" and typical of Babylonian art which aimed at portraying scenes and characters that were easy to recognize, with little concern to make them lifelike. The Hammurabi Code encapsulates 282 legal codes that were used to basically govern the people of ancient Babylon during King Hammurabi’s reign. The upright figure on the left is Hammurabi himself, symbolically receiving the laws from the sun god Shamash, the patron of Justice, recognizable by the flames behind him. Life shall go for life, eye for an eye, tooth for tooth. This concept is also found in the Bible, specifically Deuteronomy 19:21. The full quotation from Hammurabi’s code reads, If a man has destroyed the eye of a man of the gentleman class, they shall destroy his eye. The stele is in two parts: in the upper part you can see two figures in relief, and in the lower part the text of the laws. An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth was part of Hammurabi’s code. In addition to transforming Babylon into a rich and famous capital for the whole of Mesopotamia, Hammurabi was the first sovereign who decided to convert rules formerly passed on through the oral tradition into an actual code of laws. Basalt is an extremely hard volcanic rock that's difficult to work, so the accuracy with which the legal code is engraved is even more staggering. It was engraved in Babylon, in what is now Iraq, around 1760 BC, and was returned to the Iranian city about 3,000 years later as the spoils of war. Recovered at the beginning of the 20th century in Susa, in present-day Iran, the stele is a large block of basalt over two meters high. The laws follow along the rules of 'an eye for an eye'.You are in front of one of the most exciting works in the Louvre, the stele on which the so-called Code of Hammurabi - the earliest collection of written laws in the history of man - is engraved. In the preface to the law, he states, "Anu and Bel called by name me, Hammurabi, the exalted prince, who feared Marduk, the patron god of Babylon (The Human Record, Andrea & Overfield 2005), to bring about the rule in the land." On the stone slab there are 44 columns and 28 paragraphs that contained 282 laws. 1792 to 1750 BC according to the Middle chronology. A few provisions address issues related to military service. Only one provision appears to impose obligations on an official this provision establishes that a judge who reaches an incorrect decision is to be fined and removed from the bench permanently. A third of the code addresses issues concerning household and family relationships such as inheritance, divorce, paternity, and sexual behavior. Other provisions set the terms of a transaction, establishing the liability of a builder for a house that collapses, for example, or property that is damaged while left in the care of another. Nearly one-half of the Code deals with matters of contract, establishing, for example, the wages to be paid to an ox driver or a surgeon. The Code consists of 282 laws, with scaled punishments, adjusting "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" (lex talionis) as graded depending on social status, of slave versus free man. The sixth Babylonian king, Hammurabi, enacted the code, and partial copies exist on a man-sized stone stele and various clay tablets. It is one of the oldest deciphered writings of significant length in the world. The Code of Hammurabi is a well-preserved Babylonian law code of ancient Mesopotamia, dating back to about 1754 BC.
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