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Code of Hammurabi

✨ c. 1750 BCE, Babylon (Mesopotamia)

The Code of Hammurabi is a collection of laws from ancient Mesopotamia, associated with Hammurabi, king of Babylon, who ruled in the 18th century BCE. The text was probably compiled during his reign, around 1750 BCE, and is written in Akkadian using cuneiform signs. It is preserved on a tall stone monument, or stele, discovered at Susa in present-day Iran in 1901 and now kept at the Louvre in Paris. At the top, Hammurabi is shown before the sun god Shamash, who was linked with justice.

The inscription contains a prologue, many legal provisions, and an epilogue. It deals with matters such as property, trade, loans, marriage, inheritance, wages, farming, and damage caused by negligence. Penalties could vary according to the offense and the social status of the people involved. The prologue presents Hammurabi as a ruler chosen by the gods to establish order, while the epilogue describes the monument as a lasting record of his justice.

The provisions are not arranged like a modern legal textbook, and many are written as specific cases: when a particular situation occurs, a particular consequence follows. This style helps historians see how law was connected to everyday economic and family life in Babylon. Rather than being a complete code of every Babylonian law, the text is better understood as a royal collection of legal decisions and principles. Its rules do not treat everyone equally: penalties and compensation could differ for people of different social ranks, including free persons, dependent people, and enslaved people.

Some famous provisions use the principle often summarized as “an eye for an eye,” but other cases require fines, compensation, or different punishments. The monument therefore reveals how Babylonian society understood authority, property, family relations, work, and justice. It also shows that written laws were part of a wider legal tradition in Mesopotamia, which existed before Hammurabi and continued after his reign. The stele is especially important today because it is one of the best-known surviving sources for studying law and society in ancient Babylon.

💡 Did you know?

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth! This is the most famous principle of the code. It meant that if someone hurt you, they should receive exactly the same punishment. For example, if a person broke another's leg, their own leg should be broken in return. Fortunately, our laws today are a bit less severe!

A giant stone book. At the top of the stone, an engraving shows King Hammurabi receiving the laws from the sun god, Shamash. This served to prove that these laws came directly from the gods and that no one should disobey. Hammurabi wanted to be seen as a just king who protected all his people.

Magic writing. The laws are written in 'cuneiform', a writing that uses signs in the shape of small nails or wedges. To read this code, one must be a true expert, as it is a very old language that is no longer spoken today. It's like a giant puzzle that archaeologists took time to decipher!