Code of Hammurabi

Babylonian laws
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The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica

Code of Hammurabi, the most complete and perfect extant collection of Babylonian laws, developed during the reign of Hammurabi (1792–1750 bce) of the 1st dynasty of Babylon. It consists of his legal decisions that were collected toward the end of his reign and inscribed on a diorite stela set up in Babylon’s temple of Marduk, the national god of Babylonia. These 282 case laws include economic provisions (prices, tariffs, trade, and commerce), family law (marriage and divorce), as well as criminal law (assault, theft) and civil law (slavery, debt). Penalties varied according to the status of the offenders and the circumstances of the offenses.

  • Diorite stela inscribed with the Code of Hammurabi, 18th century bce.
    Diorite stela inscribed with the Code of Hammurabi, 18th century bce.
    Art Media/Heritage-Images/age fotostock

The background of the code is a body of Sumerian law under which civilized communities had lived for many centuries. The existing text is in the Akkadian (Semitic) language, but, even though no Sumerian version is known to survive, the code was meant to be applied to a wider realm than any single country and to integrate Semitic and Sumerian traditions and peoples. Moreover, despite a few primitive survivals relating to family solidarity, district responsibility, trial by ordeal, and the lex talionis (i.e., an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth), the code was advanced far beyond tribal custom and recognized no blood feud, private retribution, or marriage by capture.

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epigraphy: Ancient Mesopotamia

The principal (and only considerable) source of the Code of Hammurabi is the stela discovered at Susa in 1901 by the French Orientalist Jean-Vincent Scheil and now preserved in the Louvre.

Learn More in these related articles:

Babylonian clay tablet giving a detailed description of the total solar eclipse of April 15, 136 bc. The tablet is a goal-year text, a type that lists astronomical data of predictive use for an assigned group of years.
epigraphy: Ancient Mesopotamia
the study of written matter recorded on hard or durable material. The term is derived from the Classical Greek epigraphein (“to write upon, incise”) and epigraphē (“inscription”).
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Detail of the stela inscribed with Hammurabi’s code, showing the king before the god Shamash; bas-relief from Susa, 18th century bce; in the Louvre, Paris.
in ethics: The Middle East
The same practical bent can be found in other early codes or lists of ethical injunctions. The great Code of Hammurabi is often said to have been based on the principle of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” as if this were some fundamental principle of justice, elaborated and applied to all cases. In fact, the code reflects no such consistent principle. It frequently...
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Sites associated with ancient Mesopotamian history.
in history of Mesopotamia: Babylonian law
The Code of Hammurabi is the most frequently cited cuneiform document in specialized literature. Its first scholarly publication in 1902 led to the development of a special branch of comparative jurisprudence, the study of cuneiform law. Following the division made by the first editor, Jean-Vincent Scheil, the Code of Hammurabi contains 280 judgments, or “paragraphs,” on civil and...
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Detail of the stela inscribed with Hammurabi’s code, showing the king before the god Shamash; bas-relief from Susa, 18th century bce; in the Louvre, Paris.
Detail from the stele inscribed with the Code of Hammurabi (c. 1758 BC).

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