Download Hammurabi`s Code of Laws

ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA
•Oldest known
civilization
•Cradle of Human
Civilization
•“Fertile Crescent”
One land…Two Rivers
•Mesopotamia means =
“land between the rivers”
•Tigris River and
Euphrates River
Kingdoms of Mesopotamia
Sumerians invented the wheel!
•The wheel was invented by
6000 BC!
•It helped military, farming
and trade.
Wheel made of wood
Economy Develops
• Metal tools and weapons
(bronze, iron)
• Increasing agricultural
surplus (better tools, plows,
irrigation)
• Increasing trade along
rivers – traded with Egypt
• Development of the world’s
first cities
• Specialization of labor
Political
• Power of the Priests
• Sumer’s earliest
governments were
controlled by temple
priests
• Farmers believed they
needed blessings for
success of their crops
• Priests were the middle
man for the Gods
• Priests demanded portion of
farmer crops as tax
Religious Developments
•Polytheistic: Belief in Many
Gods (3,000!!!)
•Gods could be angered at
any moment
•to keep them happy,
Sumerians:
•Built impressive ziggurats or
temples to sacrifice food, wine
and animals
Sumerian Society
Kings and Priests
Wealthy merchants
Ordinary Sumerian people
Slaves
Babylon
•It has been estimated that
Babylon was the largest city
in the world from c. 1770 to
1670 BC
•The "holy city" of
Mesopotamia
•Babylon grew and South
Mesopotamia came to be
known as Babylonia
Hanging Gardens of Babylon
Hammurabi's Code of Laws
Social
•This is cuneiform.
•Babylonians wrote
using this “wedgeshaped” writing on
clay tablets.
•The Sumerians
invented writing.
More cuneiform writing
Political:Mesopotamian Law
•Code of Hammurabi
•“eye for an eye
tooth for a tooth”
Description of the Laws
• The Code of Hammurabi
• an ancient preserved law code
created in 1790 B.C in ancient
Babylon.
• It was written by the sixth
Babylonian king Hammurabi.
•
Hammurabi ruled from 1796 BC to
1750 BC
• One nearly complete example
of the Code is left today,
inscribed on a seven foot,
four inch tall, in basalt steel,
in the Akkaidain Language.
Why was this code created?
• First ever written entire body of laws, arranged in
orderly groups, so that all men might read and
know what was required of them.
• Examples:
• The judge who lies in a law case is to be removed from his
position forever, and heavily fined.
• The witness who testifies falsely is to be killed.
• Indeed, all the heavier crimes are made
punishable with death.
• Even if a man builds a house badly, and it falls and kills the
owner, the builder is to be killed also. If the owner's son was
killed, then the builder's son is killed.
• This is where the Hebrews learned their law of
"an eye for an eye”.
Importance to the Ancients
• Hammurabi's Code of the ancient
Mesopotamian society was
important because it set the first
written laws in human history.
• The code contained 282 laws
written in 12 tablets in the
Akkadian language, which was
common in Babylonia.
• This work is also a great source
of information about the society,
religion, economy, and history of
this period.
Why is this significant now?
• Hammurabi's Code of the
ancient society is
important because it set
the first written laws in
human history.
• It was the first ever written
legal document.
• It teaches us about
Mesopotamian society.
A Few Laws…
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If any one be too lazy to keep his dam in proper condition, and does
not so keep it; if then the dam break and all the fields be flooded, then
shall he in whose dam the break occurred be sold for money, and the
money shall replace the corn which he has caused to be ruined.
If any one give another silver, gold, or anything else to keep, he shall
show everything to some witness, draw up a contract, and then hand it
over for safe keeping.
If any one place his property with another for safe keeping, and there,
either through thieves or robbers, his property and the property of the
other man be lost, the owner of the house, through whose neglect the loss
took place, shall compensate the owner for all that was given to him in
charge. But the owner of the house shall try to follow up and recover his
property, and take it away from the thief.
If a man take a wife, and she be seized by disease, if he then desire
to take a second wife he shall not put away his wife, who has been
attacked by disease, but he shall keep her in the house which he has built
and support her so long as she lives.
If any one owe a debt for a loan, and a storm prostrates the grain, or the
harvest fail, or the grain does not grow for lack of water; in that year he
need not give his creditor any grain, he washes his debt-tablet in water
and pays no rent for this year.