Hammurabi's Code
Hammurabi's laws were written on stone monuments called Stalae and placed throughout the city. Ignorance of the law (and illiteracy) were no excuses for breaking the law.
Hammurabi's code was pretty extensive. Its 282 laws laid down punishments for every crime, from dead sheep to witch craft, that plagued ancient Mesopotamia. The most common punishment was, you guessed it, death. In fact, Hammurabi's vode is where we get the phrase 'eye for an eye'.
Here are some of our favorite laws.
# 5 If a judge was found to have made a bad ruling, he had to pay back twelve times the original judgement from his own pocket. He was also banned from practicing law again.
# 2 If someone accused someone else of a crime the way to prove your innocence was to jump into the river. If you lived the accuser would be put to death, but if you died you lose your house...and your life of course.
# 109 If a crime was planned in a tavern. The tavern keeper would be put to death.
#157 The punishment for incest was to be burned alive.
#227 Slaves were marked by a special haircut. If a barber is found guilty of disguising a slave he had his hands cut off.
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Hammurabi's Code
In 1792 BC, 500 years after the Akkadians had united Mesopotamia, a small city-state called Babylon (near modern day Baghdad) led by their King Hammurabi would succeed in creating the world's 2nd largest empire. At the heart of the Babylonian Empire was Mesopotamia that supplied most of the grain. However, the Babylonians conquered parts of Iran for its mines and Lebanon for its cedar trees. Hammurabi needed a way of bringing all of these diverse groups together into a single empire ruled by a single set of laws. So, he sent out his legal advisers to survey his new lands and help him come up with a code that would keep the rabble in order.
Like all rulers, Hammurabi was responsible for ensuring that trade ran smoothly, taxes got collected, irrigation canals got cleaned, and criminals were punished. Hammurabi wasn't the first to put his laws down on a clay tablet, but his were the most complete and the most famous code of law in human history.
Hammurabi's law code gave the world the cheerful concept of "an eye for eye" that today means that the punishment should fit the crime, but in those days it literally meant that if you put out someone's eye the punishment was to have your own eye gouged out. (Talk about justice being blind)
Hammurabi's code gives us a window in to the world of ancient Babylon not just in the way criminals were punished but in nearly every aspect of society. The laws, all 282 of them, were carved into stone stelae and erected throughout the empire so that everyone could read them. The laws dealt with everything from criminal matters to everyday issues such as property disputes, contract violations, medical malpractice, disobedient children (the punishment was death in case you were wondering) and witchcraft.
Hammurabi even got specific about laws involving veterinarian visits. (of course, that makes sense seeing that nearly everyone farmed). One law states how much a veterinarian should charge (one-sixth of a shekel) to cure Bessy and what the fine should if Bessy should be accidentally cured during a check up.
The most important part of Hammurabi's code is that it shows us that the Babylonians were not too concerned with equality. Slavery was alive and well and slaves by law had zero rights beyond what their master gave them. Poor people were had lesser value than rich people. The punishments for killing a poor person were often to pay a fine, while the punishment for killing some with status was certain death.
Another interesting tid bit about the Babylonians that we can gather from their legal system is that women had more rights than many women in the world have today. Babylonian women could own and sell property, get a divorce, and run a business. Of course that also means they were free to pay taxes on that property too, I guess every system has its ups and downs.