Code of Hammurabi

The Code of Hammurabi is a renowned Babylonian legal text compiled between 1755 and 1750 BC during the reign of Hammurabi, the sixth king of the First Dynasty of Babylon. It is the longest, best-organised and most completely preserved legal document from the ancient Near East, written in the Old Babylonian dialect of Akkadian. The primary surviving copy is a tall basalt stele rediscovered in 1901 at Susa in present-day Iran, where it had been transported as war booty centuries after its creation. The stele, now housed in the Louvre Museum, remains one of the most iconic artefacts of Mesopotamian civilisation.

Background and Historical Context

Hammurabi ruled Babylon from 1792 to 1750 BC (middle chronology). When he ascended the throne, Babylon was a minor power overshadowed by Rim-Sin of Larsa. Through a combination of military campaigns, diplomatic manoeuvring and strategic betrayals, Hammurabi expanded his kingdom into a dominant Mesopotamian state. He ultimately acquired territories from Eshnunna, Elam and Mari, achieving a high degree of regional control.
Although known for his assertive foreign policy, Hammurabi’s personal correspondence reveals a ruler invested in justice, civic wellbeing and responsible administration. He frequently styled himself as a shepherd of his people, an image echoed in the Code’s prologue. Justice (a key term recurring in both prologue and epilogue) was central to his royal ideology and underpinned his legal programme.

Earlier Mesopotamian Law Collections

While the Code of Hammurabi was the first Mesopotamian collection to be discovered by modern scholars, it was not the earliest. Preceding examples include:

• The Code of Ur-Nammu (Ur).
• The Code of Lipit-Ishtar (Isin).
• The Laws of Eshnunna, attributed to Bilalama or Dadusha.
• The so-called Laws of X, possibly a continuation of the Ur-Nammu corpus.

These texts, written in Sumerian and Akkadian, similarly claim royal authorship and display shared legal features. Thousands of legal documents—contracts, court decisions, administrative letters and reform decrees such as those issued by Urukagina of Lagash—complement these collections. Together they form the richest body of legal material known before the codification of Roman law under Justinian.

The Louvre Stele and Other Copies

The principal text of the Code is carved on a basalt stele discovered at Susa by a French archaeological expedition directed by Jacques de Morgan between 1901 and 1902. The stele was found in several large fragments, which allowed easy reconstruction. It stands over two metres tall, with a carved image of Hammurabi receiving authority from Shamash, the sun god and god of justice.
Below the relief are approximately 4,130 lines of cuneiform script. Around one-fifth comprises a poetic prologue and epilogue, while the remainder consists of laws written in casuistic (“if…then…”) format. Seven columns of text near the bottom were deliberately erased in antiquity, likely in preparation for the inscription of a later ruler’s achievements. Scholars propose that the Elamite king Shutruk-Nakhunte transported the stele from Sippar or another Babylonian centre as spoil during the twelfth century BC.
In addition to the Louvre stele, fragments of other stelae were found at Susa, and more than fifty manuscript copies of the text have been recovered from sites including Babylon, Nineveh, Assur, Nippur, Borsippa, Sippar, Ur and Larsa. These copies date from Hammurabi’s lifetime to over a millennium later, indicating that the Code became part of the scribal curriculum. A catalogue from the library of Ashurbanipal mentions a copy of the “judgments of Hammurabi,” confirming its continued significance in the first millennium BC.

Structure and Content of the Code

The Code comprises a prologue, a series of legal provisions and an epilogue. The prologue depicts Hammurabi as a divinely appointed guardian responsible for securing justice and preventing oppression of the weak. The epilogue reiterates these themes and extols the king’s achievements.
The bulk of the text consists of casuistic laws covering a broad range of legal subjects:

• Criminal law, including theft, assault and property damage.
• Family law, addressing marriage, divorce, inheritance and paternal authority.
• Property law, governing land tenure, tenancy and financial obligations.
• Commercial law, regulating trade, credit, loans, interest and contractual arrangements.

Many provisions follow a principle popularly associated with “an eye for an eye,” though the application varied according to social status and legal circumstance. The sophistication of these laws offers insight into the economic, social and administrative structures of Old Babylonian society.

Early Scholarly Reception

Father Jean-Vincent Scheil published the first modern edition of the Code in 1902, including transliteration, translation and photographs. Subsequent editions in German, English and Italian quickly followed. Early commentators regarded the text as the earliest known code of law—a view later revised following the discovery of older legal collections. Nevertheless, scholars were impressed by the Code’s comprehensive nature and its apparent fairness.
Writers such as C. H. W. Johns and James Henry Breasted praised the humanitarian tone they perceived in the laws, particularly the protections for widows, orphans and vulnerable people. Others commented on the advanced administrative system implied by the text. Some early analyses even emphasised the Code’s rationalism, contrasting it with later religiously framed legal systems.
The discovery also prompted extensive debate about the relationship between Mesopotamian law and the Mosaic Law of the Hebrew Bible. Similarities broadly based on the lex talionis principle attracted attention, although modern scholarship treats direct influence with caution, focusing instead on shared cultural and legal traditions in the ancient Near East.

Significance and Legacy

Despite ongoing debates within Assyriology regarding the Code’s purpose, interpretation and legal function—whether it served as a judicial reference, ideological monument or scholarly text—Hammurabi remains a central figure in the global history of law. The Code is frequently presented as a milestone in the development of legal thought due to its systematic structure and royal assertion of legal authority.
Beyond academic circles, the Code’s symbolic value endures. Hammurabi’s likeness appears in relief at the United States Capitol among notable lawgivers. Replicas of the Louvre stele are displayed around the world, including at the United Nations headquarters in New York and the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.