Archaeologists, including Egyptologist Gustave Jequier, discovered the code in 1901 at the ancient site of Susa in Khuzestan; a translation was published in 1902 by Jean-Vincent Sheil. A basalt stele with codeiform cuneiform writing in Akkadian is currently on display at the Louvre in Paris, France. Replicas can be found in other museums around the world. There were 248 laws that were quite strict. Some of them were: In the prologue of the code, Hammurabi declares that he wants to “make justice visible in the country, destroy evil and evildoer, so that the strong do not hurt the weak.” The main laws covered by the Code are defamation, trade, slavery, employee duties, theft, liability and divorce. Nearly half of the code focused on contracts, such as wages payable, terms of dealing, and liability for property damage. One-third of the code focused on domestic and family matters, including inheritance, divorce, paternity and sexual behavior. There is an article that states that a judge who decides an issue incorrectly may be permanently removed from office. Some sections deal with military service. Hammurabi`s edicts were an integral part of the ancient world, but the laws were lost later in history and were only rediscovered in 1901, when a team of French archaeologists excavated the famous diorite stele in Iran`s ancient city of Susa, once the seat of the Elamite Empire.
Historians believe that the Elamite king Shutruk-Nahhunte looted the four-ton plate during a raid on the Babylonian city of Sippar in the 12th century BC and then brought it to Susa as a war chest. It is believed that Shutruk-Nahhunte erased several columns of the monument to make way for his own inscription, but no text was ever added. Today, the column is on display at the Louvre in Paris. The laws (numbered 1-282, but numbers 13 and 66-99 are missing) are inscribed in Old Babylonian on an eight-foot-high black basalt stele. It was discovered in December 1901 in Susa, Elam, present-day Khuzestan, Iran, where it had been ransacked by the Elamite king Shutruk-Nahhunte in the 12th century BC. It is currently on display at the Louvre Museum in Paris, France. Discover the fascinating history of one of the most important legal systems of antiquity. Hammurabi (1728 BC – 1686 BC) felt that he had to write the code to please his gods. Unlike many previous and contemporary kings, he did not consider himself related to any god, although he described himself as “the favorite of the gods.” In the upper part of the stele, Hammurabi is depicted before the throne of the sun god Shamash. The Code of Hammurabi was one of the many laws of the ancient Middle East. Most of these legal texts, which come from similar cultures and racial groups in a relatively small geographical area, necessarily have passages that are similar. For example, the laws found in the later Hittite Code of Law (c.
1300 BC) have individual laws that have a temporary resemblance to those found in the Code of Hammurabi, as well as other codices of the same geographical area. The ancient your-Nammu, productive written literature your-III-dynasty (21st century BC). He also produced a codex of laws, some of which are similar to specific laws of the Code of Hammurabi. The later Mosaic law (according to the modern documentary hypothesis around 700-500 BC). – under Hezekiah / Josiah; Traditionally around 1200 BC. AD – under Moses) also has laws similar to the Hammurabi Codex, as well as other legal texts of the region. The Hammurabi Codex offers valuable insight into daily life in ancient Babylonia, but how laws worked in society is still debated. The statutes could have been a list of amendments to an even older and larger set of general laws, but they could also have served as a series of precedents compiled from real cases. Some historians have even argued that the codex was not a functional legal document at all, but a piece of royal propaganda created to root Hammurabi as a great and just ruler.
However effective the Code may be, there is little doubt that the Pillar itself was intended for the public. In the epilogue of the codex, Hammurabi boasts that any man involved in a dispute can read its laws in such a way that “. Find out what is right, and his heart will be happy… Hammurabi`s code was surprisingly ahead of its time when it came to laws dealing with issues such as divorce, property rights, and the prohibition of incest, but perhaps the most progressive was a provision imposing an old form of minimum wage. Several decrees in the code concerned specific professions and dictated how much workers had to pay. Farm labourers and shepherds were guaranteed a salary of “eight gours a year”, and oxen drivers and sailors received six gur. Doctors were allowed 5 shekels to heal a man born free of a fracture or other injury, but only three shekels for a freed slave and two shekels for a slave. The Hammurabi Codex is one of the most famous examples of the ancient commandment of the “lex talionis,” or law of punishment, a form of retaliatory justice commonly associated with the saying “an eye for an eye.” In this system, a person who broke the bone of one of his peers broke in turn. Capital crimes, on the other hand, have often been sentenced to death as unique and horrific. If a son and a mother were caught in the act of incest, they were burned; When an intriguing couple of lovers conspired to murder their spouses, the two were impaled. Even a relatively minor crime could result in a terrible fate for the perpetrator. For example, if a son beat his father, the code required that the boy`s hands be “cut off.” Laws were organized in groups so that citizens could easily read what was required of them. Some have seen the Code as an early form of constitutional government and an early form of presumption of innocence and ability to present evidence in one`s own case.
Intent was often recognized and influenced punishment, with negligence being severely punished. Some of the provisions may have been the codification of Hammurabi`s decisions for the purpose of self-glorification. Nevertheless, the codex was studied, copied and used at least 1500 years later as a model for legal considerations. Although other written Mesopotamian laws discovered later, including the Sumerian “Lipit-Ishtar” and “your-Nammu,” are hundreds of years older than Hammurabi`s legislator, Hammurabi`s reputation remains that of a pioneering legislator who, in the words of his monument, worked to “prevent the strong from oppressing the weak and to ensure that justice is done to widows and orphans.” The Code is often cited as the first example of the legal concept that certain laws are so fundamental that they exceed even a king`s ability to change. In writing the laws on stone, they were immutable. This concept persists in most modern legal systems and has led to the term set in stone. The Codex of Hammurabi is one of the oldest deciphered scriptures in the world and contains a code of law from ancient Babylon to Mesopotamia. The codex was written around 1754 BC. By the sixth king of Babylon, Hammurabi, and writes on stone stelae and clay tablets.
It consisted of 282 laws, with penalties that varied according to social status (slaves, free men and landowners). He is best known for the form of punishment “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” (lex talionis). At that time, there were other forms of law in the region, including the Codex of your-Nammu, king of your (c. 2050 BC). The laws of Eshnunna (c. 1930 BC) and the Lipit-Ishtar Codex of Isin (c. 1870 BC). Did you know? The Code of Hammurabi contains many severe punishments that sometimes require the removal of the offender`s tongue, hands, breasts, eyes or ear. But the Code is also one of the earliest examples of the presumption of innocence of an accused until proven guilty. The stele was packed and shipped to the Louvre in Paris, and in less than a year it was translated and widely published as the first example of a written code of law – one that was older but had striking parallels with the laws of the Hebrew Old Testament. Hammurabi`s empire fell after his death in 1750 BC.
A.D., before disintegrating completely in 1595 B.C. A.D. when a Hittite army plundered Babylon and claimed its riches. Nevertheless, the code of Hammurabi proved so influential that it lasted for several centuries as the legal leader in the region, even though domination over Mesopotamia changed hands several times. Copping code also seems to have been a popular task for writers in training. In fact, fragments of the laws have been found on clay tablets dating back to the 5th century BC – more than 1,000 years after Hammurabi`s reign. The text compiled at the end of Hammurabi`s reign is less a proclamation of principles than a collection of precedents established between prose celebrating the righteous and pious reign of Hammurabi.