The Babylonian king’s stele
Around 1750 BCE, the Babylonian king Hammurabi had a collection of legal judgments inscribed on a tall black stone stele. Its relief shows the king before Shamash, the god of the sun and justice. Dense cuneiform below combines a prologue, legal provisions and an epilogue. Following the expansion of Babylonian rule, the monument presented maintaining order and administering justice as responsibilities of the king.
Everyday disputes in legal provisions
Many provisions describe a situation and then specify its legal consequence. They address loans, land leases, sales, irrigation, marriage, inheritance and the responsibilities of physicians and builders. Fields, houses, livestock and family property appear throughout. By expressing these matters in a written collection, the stele preserved practical ways of dealing with property and labor in the towns and countryside of the kingdom.
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Status shaped judgments
Penalties and compensation varied with the parties’ social status. Free persons, people of other legal ranks and enslaved people were subject to different rules in cases involving injury or property. Family provisions likewise reflected distinctions of rank and gender. Witnesses, oaths and documents helped settle disputes. The collection reveals a society that valued written evidence while distributing rights and obligations according to status.
The stele’s later journey
The stele was later taken to Susa in Elam as war booty. Archaeologists discovered it there in 1902. Scholars deciphered the inscription and compared its provisions with other Mesopotamian legal collections. Now preserved in the Louvre, the original retains its relief, writing and areas where text was removed. Its journey also records the practice of ancient rulers collecting monuments associated with earlier royal power.