Scheil raved about the importance and perceived fairness of the stele, calling it a „moral and political masterpiece.“ [19] C. H. W. Criminal law consists of rules that define behaviour. One law said, „If a son beats his father, his hands will be cut off.“ Civil law governs disputes between individuals. The Hammurabi Code states: „If a man builds a house badly and it falls and kills the owner, the builder must be killed. If the owner`s son was killed, then the builder`s son must be killed. Bill 238 states that a master, ship manager or charterer who has saved a ship from total loss is only required to pay half of the value of the ship to the shipowner. [175] [176] [177] In the Digesta seu Pandectae (533), the second volume of that of Justinian I. (527-565) of the Eastern Roman Empire, a legal opinion of the Roman jurist Paul was included at the beginning of the crisis of the third century in 235 AD on the Lex Rhodia („Rhodian law“), which articulates the principle of the general average of marine insurance, which was used on the island of Rhodes around 1000 to 800 BC as a member of the Doric hexapolis, plausible by the Phoenicians during the planned Doric invasion and emergence of the so-called Sea Peoples in the Greek Middle Ages (c.
1100 – c. 750), which led to the spread of the Doric-Greek dialect. [178] [179] [180] The law of the general average is the basic principle underlying all insurance. [179] The Code followed the principle of lex talionis, the law of retributive justice, whereby the criminal receives the same punishment as the victim, i.e. „an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth“. But the codes were not based on equality; There were stratifications and differences in class and gender punishments. The codex was considered the first collection of Mesopotamian law when it was discovered in 1902 – for example, C. H. W. Johns` 1903 book was entitled The Oldest Code of Laws in the World. [31] The English writer H.
G. Wells included Hammurabi in the first volume of The Outline of History, and for Wells too, the codex was „the oldest known code of law.“ [33] However, three earlier collections were later discovered: the Lipit-Ishtar Codex in 1947, the Laws of Eshnunna in 1948, and the Code of your-Nammu in 1952. [34] Early commentators dated Hammurabi and the stele to the 23rd century BC. [35] However, this is an estimate that predates what even the „ultra-long chronology“ could support. The code was compiled towards the end of Hammurabi`s reign. [36] This was partly inferred from the list of his accomplishments in the prologue. [37] The Code was intended to ensure good governance, maintain social order, and was based on morality and civil obedience. It has provided a basic system for dispute resolution and a sense of fairness.
The codex was promulgated by King Hammurabi of Babylon, who ruled much of Mesopotamia from 1792 to 1750 BC. As his empire expanded, he struggled to manage a large and diverse group of people. Thus, with the help of its artisans, it codified the country`s laws to promote social cohesion and administration in the country and published them to show transparency in its governance. He revised and expanded older collections of Sumerian and Akkadian laws while formulating the code. Hammurabi`s empire fell into disrepair after his death in 1750 BC. Before falling into disrepair in 1595 BC. J.-C. completely collapsed when a Hittite army plundered Babylon and claimed its riches. Nevertheless, the code of Hammurabi proved so influential that it lasted for several centuries as the legal leader in the region, even though domination over Mesopotamia changed hands several times. Copping code also seems to have been a popular task for writers in training. In fact, fragments of the laws have been found on clay tablets dating back to the 5th century BC – more than 1,000 years after Hammurabi`s reign.
The Codex of Hammurabi is a Babylonian legal text written around 1755-1750 BC. It is the longest, best organized and best preserved legal text in the ancient Middle East. It is written in the old Akkadian Babylonian dialect, supposedly by Hammurabi, the sixth king of the first dynasty of Babylon. The main copy of the text is inscribed on a basalt or diorite stele 2.25 m (7 ft 4 + 1/2 in.) high. The stele was discovered in 1901 at the site of Susa in present-day Iran, where it had been looted six hundred years after its creation. The text itself has been copied and studied by Mesopotamian writers for more than a millennium. The stele is now in the Louvre. A final question is which source the Code claims for its legitimacy.
The prologue states that Hammurabi was chosen by the gods. Raymond Westbrook noted that in ancient Near Eastern law, „the king was the principal source of legislation.“ [134] However, they could delegate the legal authority God had given them to the judges. [135] However, as Owen B. Jenkins noted, the recipes themselves „have a surprising absence.“ of all theological law, even ceremonial“. [45] This interpretation avoids the problem of inconsistency between the Code and court judgments. Second, the codex has striking similarities with other works of Mesopotamian science. Important similarities are the list format and the order of the elements,[110] which Ann Guinan describes as a complex „serial logic“. [111] Marc Van De Mieroop explains that, like other works of Mesopotamian science such as omen lists, lists of kings, and lists of gods, entries in the Hammurabi Codex are organized according to two principles. These are „opposition“ – where one variable in one input is modified to make another – and „pointillism“ – where new conditions are added to an entry, or paradigmatic series that are plotted to produce a sequence. [112] Van De Mieroop gives the following examples: The codex is the oldest document showing evidence of the death penalty. Today, the death penalty is rarely imposed and is reserved for very few crimes, because now life, including the guilty, is valued.
The purpose and legal authority of the Code have been challenged since the mid-20th century. [87] Theories fall into three broad categories: it is legislation, whether it is a code of law or a set of laws; whereas it is a kind of legal report containing files of past cases and judgments; and that it is an abstract work of jurisprudence. Legal theory has found a lot of support within Assyriology. [88] Wolfram von Soden, who decades earlier called this way of thinking enumerating science,[119] often denigrated it. [120] However, recent authors such as Marc Van De Mieroop, Jean Bottero and Ann Guinan have either avoided value judgments or expressed admiration. Lists were at the heart of Mesopotamian science and logic, and their strong structural principles made it possible to generate endless entries. [118] The connection between the codex and the writing tradition in which the „science of lists“ was born also explains why aspiring writers have copied and studied it for more than a millennium. [24] The codex appears at the end of the Babylonian (7th-6th century BC).
List of literary and scientific texts. [121] No other body of law has been so firmly anchored in the curriculum. [122] Instead of a legal code, it can therefore be a scientific treatise. [100] The Hammurabi Codex bears strong similarities to earlier Mesopotamian law collections. Many claim to have been written by rulers, and this tradition was probably widespread. [8] Previous collections of laws express their God-given legitimacy in the same way. [154] Like the Hammurabi Codex, they contain prologues and epilogues: the Codex of your-Nammu has a prologue, the Codex of Lipit-Ishtar a prologue and epilogue, and the laws of Eshnunna an epilogue. Like the Hammurabi Code, they defend the principle of „one crime, one punishment“.
[155] Overall, the cases handled and the language used are strikingly similar. [8] For example, the scribes copied the Ur-Nammu codex when Hammurabi wrote his own codex. [156] This suggests that earlier collections not only resembled the code, but influenced it. Raymond Westbrook asserted that there was a fairly consistent tradition of „ancient Middle Eastern law,“ which included the Code of Hammurabi,[157] and that it was largely customary law. [158] However, there are differences: Stephen Bertman suggested that the Code addresses corporal punishment of offenders in previous collections for victim compensation. [159] Moreover, the above conclusions on similarity and influence apply only to the collections themselves.