Code of Hammurabi

AuthorJeffrey Lehman, Shirelle Phelps

Page 466

The Code of Hammurabi was a comprehensive set of laws, considered by many scholars to be the oldest laws established; they were handed down four thousand years ago by King Hammurabi of Babylon.

This stele shows King Hammurabi (c. 1780 B.C.) standing before Shamash, a Sumerian sun god associated with justice. The law code is set out in cuneiform writing below the figures.

GIANNI DAGLI ORTI/CORBIS

Although the Code of Hammurabi was essentially humanitarian in its intent and orientation, it contained the "eye for an eye" theory of punishment, which is a barbarian application of the concept of making the...

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