Hammurabi

Who is Hammurabi?

Hammurabi was the sixth king of the First Dynasty of Babylon, ruling over ancient Mesopotamia, in the territory of modern Iraq, for roughly forty years during the 18th century BC. Through military campaigns and alliances he unified much of Mesopotamia under Babylonian rule, transforming Babylon from a minor city-state into the dominant power of the region. He is best remembered today for the Code of Hammurabi, one of the oldest and most complete legal codes to survive from the ancient world, inscribed on a basalt stele now held in the Louvre Museum. The code sets out nearly three hundred laws covering trade, property, family, and criminal justice, applying the principle of proportional retribution captured in the phrase "an eye for an eye," alongside protections framed as safeguarding the weak from exploitation by the strong. Its prologue and epilogue, written in Akkadian cuneiform, present Hammurabi as a divinely appointed ruler charged with establishing justice and the welfare of his people. The Code of Hammurabi remains a foundational document in the history of law and a landmark artifact of Mesopotamian civilization.

Sources: Code of Hammurabi, trans. L. W. King (1910/1915), Avalon Project, Yale Law School · Marc Van De Mieroop, King Hammurabi of Babylon: A Biography (2005) · Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Hammurabi"