While early codes of law provided for fines and other fairly minor penalties for violations, Hammurabi`s penalties were much stricter: Hammurabi combined his military and political advances with irrigation projects and the construction of fortifications and temples that celebrated Babylon`s patron deity, Marduk. Babylon in Hammurabi`s time is now buried under the region`s water table, and all the archives he kept have long since been dissolved, but clay tablets discovered at other ancient sites show glimpses into the king`s personality and state spirit. The oldest was written by Ur-Nammu, a king of Ur, who ruled in 2111-2094 BC. J.-C., about three centuries before Hammurabi. “These older codes obviously inspired Hammurabi`s,” Charpin writes. Scheil raved about the importance and perceived fairness of the stele, calling it a “moral and political masterpiece.” [19] C. H.W.`s fines were still in place as a deterrent, but more detailed laws were needed for family law and commercial contracts. It could no longer be assumed that everyone under the law was working with the same understanding of what was right behavior. The Lipit-Ishtar codex is also fragmentary, but under the laws it was: Let students know that some recent books and websites still contain claims that the Hammurabi codex was the first set of laws ever made. But we now know that Hammurabis was one of the many codes created before and after his reign. Hammurabi still calls himself na`dum, “pious” (lines 61, 149, 241 and 272). Hammurabi`s metaphor as the shepherd of his people is also repeated. It was a common metaphor for the kings of the ancient Middle East, but it may be justified by Hammurabi`s interest in the affairs of his subjects.
[62] His affinities with many different gods are emphasized throughout. He is portrayed as conscientious in the restoration and maintenance of temples and incomparable on the battlefield. The list of his achievements has established that the text was written at the end of Hammurabi`s reign. According to the list, Hammurabi states that he responded to Marduk`s request to establish “truth and justice” (kittam u mīšaram) for the people (292-302), although the prologue never refers directly to the laws. [63] The prologue ends “then:” (303: inūmišu) and the laws begin. [64] [Note 1] The Louvre stele was found on the site of the ancient Elamite city of Susa. Susa is located in the current province of Khuzestan, Iran (Persia at the time of the excavations). The stele was excavated by the French Archaeological Mission under the direction of Jacques de Morgan. [20] Father Jean-Vincent Scheil published the first report in the fourth volume of the Reports of the Delegation to Persia.
According to Schweil, the fragments of the stele were found between December 1901 and January 1902 on the Tell of the Acropolis of Susa. [19] The few large fragments facilitated the assembly. [19] At first glance, the document resembles a highly organized codex similar to the Justinian Codex and the Napoleonic Codex. [92] There is also evidence that Dīnātum, which sometimes refers to individual “laws” in the Hammurabi Codex, was applied. [93] A copy of the codex calls it an ṣimdat šarrim, “royal decree,” which denotes a kind of forced legislation. [94] Wolfram von Soden, who decades earlier had called this way of thinking the science of lists,[119] often denigrated it. [120] However, recent writers such as Marc Van De Mieroop, Jean Bottéro, and Ann Guinan have either avoided value judgments or expressed admiration. Lists were at the heart of Mesopotamian science and logic, and their characteristic structural principles made it possible to generate infinitely entries. [118] The connection between the codex and the writing tradition in which the “science of the list” was born also explains why aspiring writers copied and studied it for more than a millennium. [24] The codex appears in a late Babylonian (7th-6th century BC) List of literary and scientific texts. [121] No other collection of laws has been so firmly anchored in the curriculum.
[122] Instead of a code of law, it may therefore be a scientific treatise. [100] A third theory that has gained ground in Assyriology is that the codex is not a real code, but an abstract treatise on how judgments should be formulated. This prompted Fritz Rudolf Kraus, in an early formulation of the theory, to call them legal decisions. [107] Kraus suggested that it was a work of Mesopotamian scholarship in the same category as collections of omens such as šumma ālu and ana ittišu. [107] Others have provided their own versions of this theory. [108] A. Leo Oppenheim noted that the Hammurabi Codex and similar collections of Mesopotamian laws “represent an interesting formulation of social criticism and should not be understood as normative directions.” [109] This lack of unity made city-states easy prey for invaders. The Hittites invaded in 1595 BC. J.-C. and the Kassites shortly after, then the Elamites around 1150 BC. J.-C.
under their king Shutruk Nakhunte. At that time, it is believed, the stele of the code was returned from Hammurabi to Elam, where it was found in 1901 AD. Found broken into pieces. However, his influence is notable in the creation of later codes of law such as the Middle Assyrian laws, the Neo-Babylonian laws, and the Mosaic Law of the Bible, all of which follow the same pattern as Hammurabi`s codex in giving people an objective and universal guideline on how to treat others and expect to be treated in a civilized society. The first Mesopotamian code of law was the Code of Urukagina (c. 24th century BC), which today exists only in fragments. The Codex of your-Nammu, although fragmentary even in modern times, is still coherent enough to provide a clear understanding of what the laws addressed. The laws were written in cuneiform script on clay tablets and follow a pattern that may have been first established by the Codex of Urukagina, which would also influence the later laws of Eshnunna (c. 1930 BC), the codex of King Lipit-Ishtar (r. c. 1870 – c.
1860 BCE) and Hammurabi. Hammurabi`s term “Code” is a modern term, so named after the “Napoleonic Code” of the 19th century. Scientists today are debating the importance of the stele, which is now in the Louvre, and whether the rules laid down by Hammurabi really represent a complete code of law. Did you know? Hammurabi`s codex contains many severe punishments that sometimes require the removal of the culprit`s tongue, hands, breasts, eye, or ear. But the code is also one of the first examples of a person accused presumed innocent until proven guilty. As the ancient churches grew, they needed a stronger central government to complete and take over the necessary public projects—such as the canals that allowed Babylon to cultivate excess food—and to maintain law and order to maintain the proper functioning of life in the cities. We know from the records on clay tablets that Babylonia had an organized justice system. Such a system requires some standardization of the law, as well as an educated class that serves as judges and clerks.
The Hammurabi Codex was introduced throughout the country and united people under the law and not just through conquest. Unlike the Akkadian Empire, which had deemed it necessary to position hand-picked officials to administer their conquered cities, Hammurabi controlled his empire by law. In the prologue of his codex, he not only makes it clear that these are divine laws, but that only the best interests of the people were close to his heart in their application: the Codex of Hammurabi, engraved on a large stone stele – a vertical plate – was discovered in 1901 by a French expedition. Its leader, Father Vincent Scheil, translated the code the following year. At the time, it was the oldest known set of laws that resembled laws. Since then, however, similar “codes” have been discovered. Although Hammurabi`s code is not unique, it is still the longest code discovered to date, and one of the few known to have been inscribed on a stele. Information and a photo of the stele can be found at the Louvre Museum, available through the EDSITEment journal resource The Oriental Institute: The University of Chicago. Once on the Louvre website, click on the “selected works” link on the left; Then click on Oriental Antiquities; under “Selected Works”, click on Mesopotamia and Anatolia; And finally, you will see an image of the stele by scrolling through the thumbnails.