Code of Hammurabi, the most complete and perfectextant collection ofBabylonian laws, developed during the reign ofHammurabi (1792–1750bce) of the 1stdynasty of Babylon. It consists of his legal decisions that were collected toward the end of his reign and inscribed on a dioritestela set up in Babylon’s temple ofMarduk, the national god ofBabylonia. These 282 case laws include economic provisions (prices, tariffs, trade, and commerce),family law (marriage and divorce), as well ascriminal law (assault, theft) andcivil law (slavery, debt). Penalties varied according to the status of the offenders and the circumstances of the offenses.

The background of the code is a body of Sumerian law under which civilizedcommunities had lived for many centuries. The existing text is in theAkkadian (Semitic) language, but, even though no Sumerian version is known to survive, the code was meant to be applied to a wider realm than any single country and tointegrate Semitic and Sumerian traditions and peoples. Moreover, despite a few primitive survivals relating to family solidarity, district responsibility,trial by ordeal, and thelex talionis (i.e., aneye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth), the code was advanced far beyond tribal custom and recognized noblood feud, privateretribution, or marriage by capture.

The principal (and only considerable) source of the Code of Hammurabi is the stela discovered atSusa in 1901 by the French Orientalist Jean-Vincent Scheil and now preserved in theLouvre.

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