French archaeologists found it buried in the sands of what is now Iran in 1901. The pieces of a great pillar of black stone carved in the ancient region of Mesopotamia more than 3,600 years earlier. At the top of the massive pillar, or steel, were two figures, the ancient Babylonian sun god, flames coming from his shoulders, and Hammurabi, the most famous king of Babylon. Hammurabi had turned Babylon into a city of fire and fire. to an empire, conquering independent city-states throughout the Fertile Crescent, the rich farmland between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
To establish order and unify all of these different cities and people, Hammurabi needed one universal set of laws to, as he wrote, bring about the rule of righteousness in the land to destroy the wicked and the evildoers so that the strong should not harm the weak. More than 250 of those laws are carved in columns onto this steel. In characters and symbols, one of the oldest known written codes of conduct setting out rules of behavior and specific, often harsh punishments. If anyone is committing a robbery and is caught, then he shall be put to death, states law number 22. More than 30 laws call for the guilty to be put to death, sometimes in gruesome ways, by being impaled, burned, or thrown into water.
That meant being tossed in the Euphrates River. If the accused drowned, it was seen as a sign of the end of the world. as proof of guilt because the gods didn't save him or her. But if the river proved that the accused is not guilty and he escaped unhurt, reads the code, the accused was innocent, and then he who had brought the accusation shall be put to death. causing a death was often punishable by death.
If a builder constructed a house that collapsed and killed the homeowner, that builder shall be put to death. If the homeowner's son was killed in the collapse, the son of that builder shall be put to death. Punishment was often reciprocal.
If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out, reads law number 196, one of the most famous in that code. But eye for an eye justice wasn't applied equally. Punishments varied depending on the social class of both the accused and the accuser. If a higher class landowner put out the eye of a commoner, for example, he only had to pay a fine of one gold mina. According to the code, women in every social class had lower status than men.
Several laws restricted what women could do, but others protected women's rights to inherit a field, a garden, or a house, and to divorce their husbands. A wife who could prove abandonment or neglect could take her dowry and go back to her father's house. Laws and the code cover liability, malpractice, trade, even the minimum wage to be paid.
the workers in specific occupations. Six gur of corn per year for an ox driver, eight gur for a cattle or sheep herder, four giras for a rope maker, and five giras for a potter. Elements of law and justice carved in the pillar are still found printed in modern law books thousands of years later. The presumption of innocence, for example, and the right of two parties in dispute to bring their case before a judge and provide evidence.
and witnesses. It seems clear, Hammurabi meant the code to stand as a permanent set of legal precedents. Most of the monument has survived for thousands of years, an ancient system of law and order set in stone.