Hammurabi's Code of Laws

HIS 111 Research Document  © 2008 David C. Hanson, Virginia Western Community College

The Babylonian king Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC) united all of Mesopotamia during his forty-three year reign of Babylon.  Hammurabi did many things to improve his empire.  He improved the irrigation system and also promoted advances in astronomy, mathematics, and literature.  He is remembered for his comprehensive code of laws (c. 1786 BCE) governing family relations, criminal misconduct, civil law, ethics, commerce, and every other aspect of life.  Hammurabi proclaimed that Marduk, the chief god of Babylon, had given him the inspiration and authority for the code.  Many of the punishments seem excessively harsh; for example, if a son strikes his father, he shall lose his forehand (195).  All the heavier crimes are made punishable with death.  If a man builds a house badly, and it falls and kills the owner, the builder is to be slain.  If the owner's son was killed, then the builder's son is slain.  In Hammurabi's criminal law the ruling principle is lex talionis: eye for eye, tooth for tooth, limb for limb.  The commonest of all penalties was a fine that increased with the seriousness of the offense.  The code recognized the importance of intention; for example, if a man who killed another in a quarrel swears he did not do so intentionally, he was then only fined according to the rank of the deceased.  (Throughout the Code respect is paid to status.)  Suspicion was not enough; the criminal must be caught in the act.  A man could not be convicted of theft unless the stolen goods were found in his possession. In 1901 an 8 ft. black stone monument carved with the Code of Hammurabi was found in a city of the Persian mountains, where some conqueror must have carried it away from Babylon in triumph.  The code lists transgressions numbering 1 through 282 and their punishments (the translated text for laws 66 through 99 is missing).

Hammurabi's Code

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