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The Code of Hammurabi
Complete English translation with a running parallel transliteration of the original ideograms of The Code of Hammurabi, the longest surviving legal text from the Old Babylonian periodThe Code of Hammurabi is a collection of laws proscribed by Hammurabi, the sixth King of the First Dynasty of Babylon, and reigned from approximately 1792 BC to 1750 BC. These were inscribed on cuneiform tablets towards the end of his reign and discovered on the acropolis of Susa in 1901 by the Egyptologist Gustav Jequier. The code consists of 282 case laws carved in forty-nine columns on a basalt stele. The code encompasses commercial, criminal and civil law. This edition contains a complete English translation of the code with a running parallel transliteration of the original ideograms. All corrections and erasures are included. This edition also includes facsimiles of all of the original cuneiform tablets, a thorough glossary and index of subjects, lists of proper names and tables of weights and currencies.Robert Francis Harper 1864-1914] was Professor of the Semitic Languages and Literatures in the University of Chicago, Director of the Babylonian Section of the Oriental Exploration Fund of the University of Chicago, Managing Editor of The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures, and Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.CONTENTS Frontispiece PrefaceIntroductionTransliteration and TranslationIndex of SubjectsList of Proper NamesGlossaryPhotograph of TextAutographed TextList of SignsList of NumeralsList of Scribal ErrorsList of ErasuresMap of Babylonia
- GenresHistory
422 pages, Hardcover
Published April 29, 2010
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* They are officially published under that name
* They are traditional stories not attributed to a specific author
* They are religious texts not generally attributed to a specific author
Books whose authorship is merely uncertain should be attributed to Unknown.
See also: Anonymous
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December 17, 2019
I’ve read (and cited!) this text a time or two over the years. This version caught my eye because it purports to be autographed. Not sure which bit of cuneiform is the autograph of the Great God Marduk or his collaborators, but I’m glad to know it’s in there.
This version has GORGEOUS indexes and codexes. Seriously quantities of cuneiform.
As we all know, Marduk gave Hammurabi the law “to cause justice to prevail in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil, to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak.” (prologue).
Reading it this time, it really struck me how much I recognize and how alien is its organization. Briefly, it starts as something of a code of criminal procedure. The very first section: “If a man bring an accusation against a man, and charge him with a (capital) crime, but cannot prove it, the accuser, shall be put to death.” But capital crimes aren’t first defined. It starts with the consequences for false witness. In a book dictated by a god.
It goes on to talk about theft and murder, frolics and detours. Then it moves on to business regulation. So much business regulation. Bit of timber trespass (§59). Whole lot of tavern regulation, including the death penalty for priestesses who open one or enters one. (§ 110).
Then we move on to when a man can sell his wife and children and when divorce is legal. While there are many protections for married women that would be envied in millennia later in some towns, it does countenance the death penalty for a wife’s adultery. The woman is to be bound and thrown into the waters, though the husband is explicitly allowed to pull her out.
Then the text jumps to criminal punishments for various types of assault against different stations of people. Eye for an eye for equals; fee schedule for those god has set below you.
And then: medical malpractice! And other types of malpractice! Regulation of slave branding! Building regulations! Wage regulation! More about slaves!
Ends with a mighty curse upon all those would change the judgments of the king.
Good romp.
This version has GORGEOUS indexes and codexes. Seriously quantities of cuneiform.
As we all know, Marduk gave Hammurabi the law “to cause justice to prevail in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil, to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak.” (prologue).
Reading it this time, it really struck me how much I recognize and how alien is its organization. Briefly, it starts as something of a code of criminal procedure. The very first section: “If a man bring an accusation against a man, and charge him with a (capital) crime, but cannot prove it, the accuser, shall be put to death.” But capital crimes aren’t first defined. It starts with the consequences for false witness. In a book dictated by a god.
It goes on to talk about theft and murder, frolics and detours. Then it moves on to business regulation. So much business regulation. Bit of timber trespass (§59). Whole lot of tavern regulation, including the death penalty for priestesses who open one or enters one. (§ 110).
Then we move on to when a man can sell his wife and children and when divorce is legal. While there are many protections for married women that would be envied in millennia later in some towns, it does countenance the death penalty for a wife’s adultery. The woman is to be bound and thrown into the waters, though the husband is explicitly allowed to pull her out.
Then the text jumps to criminal punishments for various types of assault against different stations of people. Eye for an eye for equals; fee schedule for those god has set below you.
And then: medical malpractice! And other types of malpractice! Regulation of slave branding! Building regulations! Wage regulation! More about slaves!
Ends with a mighty curse upon all those would change the judgments of the king.
Good romp.
Displaying 1 of 1 review