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Sumer: Law and Order
From: Human Experience 59-60
The Sumerian Civilization
Around 3500 BCE, a people from either central Asia or Asia Minor – the
Sumerians- arrived in Mesopotamia. They settled in the lower part of the Tigris-Euphrates
river valley, known as Sumer. Sumer became the birthplace of what historians have
considered the world’s first cities.
The Sumerian City-States
By 3000 BCE, the Sumerians had formed 12 citystates in the Tigris-Euphrates valley, including Ur, Uruk,
Eridu. A typical Sumerian city-state consisted of the city
itself and the land surrounding it. The population of each
city-sate ranged form 20,000 to 250,000.
The people of Sumer shared a common culture,
language and religion. Sumerian city-states also shared
some physical features. A ziggurat, or temple, made of sundried brick and decorated with color tile, was built in each
city-state. Sumerians built a ziggurat as a series of terraces,
with each terrace smaller than the one below. A staircase
climbed to a shrine atop the ziggurat. Only priest and
priestesses were allowed to enter the shrine, which was
dedicated to the city-state’s chief deity. In form a ziggurat
resembled a pyramid-both being massive stepped or peaked
structures- but the feeling and emphasis of the two differed.
A pyramid hid an inner tomb reachable only through
passageways. A ziggurat raised a shrine to the sky, reached by mounting outer stairs.
Sumerian Government
Each Sumerian city-state usually governed itself independently of the others. In the
city-states of Uruk, for example, a council of nobles and an assembly of citizens ran
political affairs at first. But later, as city-states faced threats of foreign invaders and began
to compete for land and water rights, the citizens of each city-state typically chose a
military leader from among themselves. By 2700 BCE, the leaders of several city-states
ruled as kings. Soon after, the kingships became hereditary.
A Sumerian king served not only as military leader but also as the high priest, who
represented the city-state’s deity. Thus the governments of the city-states were not only
monarchies but also theocracies. Because the Sumerians believed that much of the land
belonged to a city-state’s god or goddess, a king and his priests closely supervised farming.
A king also enforced the law and set penalties for lawbreakers. Most punishments consisted
of fines and did not involve bodily injury or loss of life.
Over
Spielvogel page 9
Sumerians viewed kingship as divine in origin – kings, they believed, derived their
power from the gods and were the agents of the gods. Regardless of their origins, kings had
power – they led armies, initiated legislation, supervised the building of public works,
provided courts, and organized workers for the irrigation projects upon which
Mesopotamian agriculture depended. The army, the government, bureaucracy, and the
priests and priestesses all aided the kings in their rule. Befitting their power, Sumerian
kings lived in large palaces with their wives and their children.
Sumer: Law and Order
Hammurabi’s Codes/ Babylonian Empire
In about 2000 B.C., nomadic warriors known as Amorites, another Semitic group,
invaded Mesopotamia. Within a short time, the Amorites overwhelmed the Sumerians and
established their capital at Babylon, on the Euphrates River. The Babylonian Empire
reached its peak during the reign of Hammurabi, from 1792 B.C. to 1750 B.C.
Hammurabi’s most enduring legacy is the code of laws he put together.
Although individual Sumerian cities had developed codes of laws, Hammurabi
recognized that a single, uniform code would help to unify the diverse groups within his
empire. He therefore collected existing rules, judgments, and laws into the Code of
Hammurabi. Hammurabi had the code engraved in stone, and copies were placed all over
his empire.
The code lists 282 specific laws dealing with everything that affected the
community, including family relations, business conduct, and crime. The laws tell us a
great deal about the Mesopotamians’ beliefs and what they valued. Since they were
merchants and traders, fro example, many of the laws related to property issues.
Although the code applied to everyone, it set different punishments for rich and
poor and for men and women. It frequently applied the principle of retaliations (an eye for
an eye and a tooth for a tooth) to punish crimes….
Despite its severity, Hammurabi’s Code carried forward an important idea in
Mesopotamian civilization. It reinforced the principle that government had a responsibility
for what occurred in society.
From World History: Patterns of Interaction p.31-32
Selections from Hammurabi’s Code
Code 3: If any one bring an accusation of any crime before the elders, and does not prove
what he has
charged, he shall, if it be a capital offense charged, be put to death.
Code 22: If any one is committing a robbery and is caught, then he shall be put to death.
Code 23: If the robber is not caught, then shall he who was robbed claim under oath the
amount of his
loss; then shall the community, and ... on whose ground and territory and in whose
domain it was compensate him for the goods stolen.
Code 53: 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.
Code 110: If a "sister of a god" (priestess) open a tavern, or enter a tavern to drink, then
shall this woman
be burned to death.
Code 195: If a son strike his father, his hands shall be hewn off.
Code 196: If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out.
Code 199: If he put out the eye of a man’s slave, or break the bone of a man’s slave, he
shall pay onehalf of its value.
Code 201: If he knock out the teeth of a client [a person of lower class], he shall pay onethird of a gold mina.
Code 218: If a physician make a large incision with the operating knife, and kill him, or
open a tumor with the operating knife, and cut out the eye, his hands shall be cut off.
Code 229: If a builder build a house for some one, and does not construct it properly, and
the house which he built fall in and kill its owner, then that builder shall be put to death.