Code of Hammurabi

The "Code of Hammurabi" is the most complete existing document on Babylonian law. Originally inscribed on a stela placed in the temple of Marduk, Babylon's main religious building, it consist of a collection of the 282 legal decisions handed down by king Hammurabi, who reigned 1792 - 1750 BC and was the sixth in the First Dynasty of Babylon.

The Code promulgated the law for the empire through cases based on the principle "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." It contains provisions for business law, covering prices, tariffs, trade and commerce, for family law including marriage and divorce, for criminal law (theft, assault etc) and for civil law (slavery, debt etc).

As the law covered all people of the Babylonian empire it was translated into various languages. The existing text, now in the Louvre of Paris and shown below, is in Akkadian. An example of the laws laid down in the Code concerns building practices in cities:

• If a builder builds a house for a man and does not make its construction solid, and the house he has built collapses, causing the death of the owner of the house - that builder shall be put to death.
• If it causes the death of the son of the owner of the house - they shall put to death a son of the builder.
• If it causes the death of a slave of the owner of the house - he shall give the owner of the house a slave of equal value.
• If it destroys property, he shall restore whatever is destroyed, and because he did not make the house that he built solid and it collapsed, he shall rebuild the house at his own expense.
• If a builder builds a house for a man and does not make its construction meet the requirements and a wall falls in, that builder shall strengthen the wall at his own expense.

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