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Hammurabi Facts

Hammurabi Facts
Hammurabi was a king of ancient Babylon (ruled ca. 1792-1750), who is best known for commissioning the "Law Code of Hammurabi" in the second year of his rule. An ethnic Amorite, Hammurabi's people conquered Babylon after the collapse of the Third Dynasty of Ur, but embraced Babylonian and Mesopotamian culture as their own, establishing the First Dynasty of Babylon in the process. Hammurabi was the sixth king of the dynasty and perhaps the most vigorous and most imperialistic, as he expanded the dynasty's control from just the region of Babylonia to most of Mesopotamia, making it a true empire. His father and predecessor on the throne was Sin-mubalit (reigned ca. 1812-1792 BC), who is much less known.
Interesting Hammurabi Facts:
The Amorites established the First Dynasty of Babylon in about the year 1894 BC.
The Amorite were a Semitic people.
Hammurabi conquered the Mesopotamian state of Larsa in ca. 1763 BC.
Hammurabi conquered the Mesopotamian state of Mari in ca. 1761 BC.
Although Hammurabi and his predecessors adopted most aspects of Babylonian culture, including the use of the Akkadian language, he still referred to himself as "King of the Amorites" in texts.
Hammurabi's Code is written on a "stela," which is a rock or stone with a an inscription.
The inscription on the Law Code is written in the Akkadian language of the cuneiform script.
The picture on top of the Code depicts Shamash, the Mesopotamian god of justice, giving the laws to the king.
The Law Code is made of diorite.
Hammurabi's Law Code deals with the subjects of family, property, and commercial law.
In Hammurabi's time, there were three classes of people in Babylonian society: awilum, who were property owning freemen; mushkennum, who were non-property owning dependents, and wardum or slaves.
Besides the Law Code of Hammurabi, the greatest work of art from Hammurabi's reign to have survived is a granite sculpture of a king's head, believed by many scholars to be Hammurabi.
Both the Law Code of Hammurabi and the granite head of a king are now in the Louvre Museum, Paris.
In 1761 BC, Hammurabi conquered Eshnunna, which gave him control to trade routes that linked the Iranian plateau to the Mesopotamian plain.
According to the Law Code of Hammurabi, punishments could be very harsh but were determined according to the offender's social status.
One example of the harsh punishments follows: "If either a sergeant or a captain has appropriated the household goods of a soldier, has wrong a soldier, has let a soldier for hire, has abandoned a soldier to a superior in a lawsuit, has appropriated the grant which the king gave to a soldier, that sergeant or captain shall be put to death."
Unlike their contemporaries the Egyptians, the people of Mesopotamia rarely deified their kings, but they made an exception for Hammurabi.
Hammurabi is believed to have died from natural causes.
Hammurabi's successors were unable to keep his empire intact.


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