Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Code of Hammurabi

Episode Date: February 10, 2021

In 1901, Swiss archeologists Gustave Jequier discovered a large stone stele in what is today western Iran. That large stone was 2.25m or 7.5 feet tall and was covered with cuneiform writing. After it was translated, it was found to have been a list of 282 laws written down by the Babylonian King Hammurabi. The laws covered many of the same issues that people deal with in the modern world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1901, Swiss archaeologist Gustav Jouquet discovered a large stone steely in what is today Western Iran. That large stone was two and a quarter meters or seven and a half feet tall, and was covered with cuneiform writing. After it was translated, it was found to have been a list of 282 laws written down by the Babylonian king, Hamarabi. The laws covered many of the same issues that people deal with in the modern world today. Learn more about Hammurabi's Code, the world's first written laws, on this episode of Everything. everything everywhere daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may

have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the Thurline podcast from NPR. This episode is sponsored by audible.com. My audiobook recommendation today is Babylon. Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization by Paul Krivichek. In Babylon, Paul Krivichek tells the story of Mesopotamia,

from the earliest settlement 7,000 years ago, to the eclipse of Babylon in the 6th century BC. At the heart of this book is the story of Babylon, which rose to prominence under the King Hamarabi from about 1800 BCE. Even as Babylon's fortunes waxed and waned, it never lost the allure as the ancient world's greatest city. You can get a free one-month trial to Audible and two free audiobooks by going to

Audibletrial.com slash everything everywhere, or by clicking on the link in the show notes. Hamarabi was the king of the Babylonian Empire from approximately 1792 to 1750 BCE. Just to put that into perspective, this was over a thousand years before the city of Rome was even founded. As Babylonian emperors went,

Hamerabi was pretty successful. When he rose to power, Babylon was still a relatively minor player in the region, and when he died, he had conquered most of Mesopotamia along both the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The region was almost entirely in what is today modern Iraq. Like any good king, when Hamarabi wasn't conquering nearby kingdoms, he was passing laws and making sure that his kingdom ran smoothly and efficiently. It is believed that Hamerabi sent out scholars to the various kingdoms he conquered

to collect the various laws of all their realms, and then collected them into a uniform code of laws for everyone. The result of this was the code of Hamerabi. which is believed to be 282 laws regarding any number of different infractions, crimes, and disputes. The laws were inscribed on a stone and clay tablets and spread around the kingdom. The steely which was found in 1901 is exceptionally well preserved. The object itself is a hard black stone known as diorite. It's shaped like a giant human finger.

At the top is an image of Hemarabi receiving the laws from the Babylonian god Shamash. There is then a preface which states the following. quote, Anu and Bell called me by name, Hamarabi, the exalted prince who feared God, to bring about the rule of righteousness in the land, to destroy the wicked and evildoers, so that the strong should not harm the weak, so that I should rule over the black-headed people like Shamash,

and enlighten the land to further the well-being of mankind. Unquote. About 600 years later, the steely was taken by the king of Elam, Shatrach Nahuante. If you've ever watched the 2002 movie, the Emperor's Club with Kevin Klein, you'll remember that Shotrachnahonte was used as the example of someone that no one remembers, except that I now just mentioned him in a podcast. And he was in a movie. Under the reign of Shetrachnahonte, it was believed that he erased two to three dozen of the laws

originally written by Hammurabi. Researchers have been able to recreate the deleted laws by finding other clay tablets that had the laws written on them. Sometime after that, it was buried, as ancient things tend to do, and it was rediscovered in 1901. So what does the Code of Hammurabi say? Many of the laws are examples of what is known in Latin as Lex Talionis, which is a law where the punishment is similar to the crime. You might know it better as an eye for an eye. For example, law 196 states, quote, if a man destroy the eye of another man, they shall

destroy his eye. If one break a man's bone, they shall break his bone, unquote. However, the rules were different depending on what social class you were in. For example, I didn't read the entirety of Law 196 just now. The rest of it is as follows. Quote, If one destroy the eye of a freeman or break the bone of a freeman, he shall pay one gold mina. If one destroy the eye of a man's slave or break a bone of a man's slave, he shall pay one half his price.

So, the social status of the victim of a crime was a consideration in the law. If some of this sounds familiar, that's because it's very similar to the laws that are in the Bible in the book of Leviticus. The code of Hamarabi was written well before the book of Leviticus, so it's quite possible, if not probable, that some of the laws from Leviticus were adopted from Babylonian laws. The final version of Leviticus was written after the Jewish Babylonian exile, so it's in fact very possible. There are laws in the code that deal with commerce, divorce, rent, liability, and even medical malpractice. practice. There are even laws dealing with contracts and the issuing of receipts. It's true that most of the laws are of a rather brutal if-X-than-Y variety, with punishments ranging from drowning, burning, severing hands, gouging out eyes, etc. Most of these type of laws are no longer on the books in

most countries, obviously. However, there are some surprisingly forward-thinking laws for something that was written down 3,700 years ago. For example, law 149 states, quote, if this woman does not wish to remain in her husband's house, then he shall compensate her for the dowry that she brought with her from her father's house and she may go." Unquote. That is basically an ancient version of no-fault divorce. However, there was one concept that was in the code of Hammurabi, which was revolutionary and is still with us today. That is the concept of being innocent until proven guilty. In fact, these are the very first laws written down in the code. Here are the first three laws in the coat of Hammurabi.

Quote, law one, if anyone ensnare another, putting a ban upon him, but he cannot prove it, then let he that ensnared him be put to death. Law two, if anyone bring an accusation against a man, and the accused go to the river and leap into the river, if he sink in the river, his accuser shall take possession of his house. But if the river proved that the accused is not guilty, and he escape on hurt, then he who brought the accusation shall be put to death, while he who leapt into the river shall take possession of the house that had belonged to his accuser. Law 3. If anyone 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. Unquote. So basically, they had really harsh perjury laws, and they made it really hard to pass frivolous lawsuits. So while I don't think anyone would really want to live under the Code of Hammurabi today, it's an important part of humanity's legal history. Old Hammurabi's 282 laws written in stone were the very first step in creating a system which has led to the 175,268 pages of the United States Code of Federal Regulations today. Executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is James Mackala. The associate producer is Thor Thompson. Remember to leave a five-star review to get your review read on the show. Apple Podcasts, Podcast Republic, or wherever you listen to the show.

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