Law · c. 1755–1750 BCE
Code of Hammurabi
Babylon (Iraq)
Late in his reign (c. 1792–1750 BCE), King Hammurabi of Babylon had about 282 laws carved on a 2.25 m basalt stele crowned by an image of the sun god Shamash.
The laws cover trade, wages, family and property, set penalties that differed by social class, and include the principle of an eye for an eye. Centuries later the stele was carried off to Susa in Iran as plunder; it was found there in 1901 and is now in the Louvre.
Why it mattered
It is the best-known early law collection, a ruler's public statement of fixed rules for justice, and it made the idea of written, displayed law famous across the ages.
Elsewhere
It was not the first: the earlier Mesopotamian law collections of Ur-Nammu, Lipit-Ishtar and Eshnunna are known.
Related
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