Quickbytes Explanation
Hammurabi’s Code
Question
What was Hammurabi's Code?
Reveal Answer
Answer
A written collection of laws issued by the Babylonian king Hammurabi.
Quick Explanation
Hammurabi's Code is the modern name for a famous collection of legal judgments issued under King Hammurabi of Babylon in the eighteenth century BCE. The surviving stela contains 282 judgments concerning property, trade, family, labor, injury, and other disputes. It was not a modern law code applied equally to everyone; penalties often varied by social status.
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Hammurabi and Babylon
Hammurabi ruled Babylon in the eighteenth century BCE and expanded his kingdom until it controlled much of Mesopotamia. His name is especially associated with a large inscribed stone monument commonly called Hammurabi’s Code.
What Is on the Stela?
The surviving text contains 282 legal judgments covering subjects such as property, trade, wages, agriculture, family relationships, theft, injury, and professional responsibility.
At the top of the stela, Hammurabi is shown before Shamash, a god associated with justice. The image linked royal authority with a divine responsibility to uphold order and justice.
Not a Modern Legal Code
The word code can be misleading. The monument is better understood as a collection of legal decisions and principles than as a complete modern statute book. The punishments also reflected the hierarchical society of the time: consequences could differ according to a person’s social position.
Why It Matters
The text gives historians detailed evidence about social relationships, economic activity, family law, labor, and ideas of justice in Old Babylonian society.
Hammurabi was not the first ruler to issue written laws, but his stela is among the most complete and famous surviving legal monuments of the ancient world.