Ancient Babylonia Source Analysis

Source Analysis

The laws put forth by Hammurabi are of great interest on both a sociological and historical standpoint: Not only are the laws incredibly important as a milestone of explicit legal code for a large region but also they provide a window into the obstacles and internal conflicts that might have been faced at the time. Of special importance is the vast information on the social structure of ancient Babylonia, and as such I shall be answering the question of the various social divisions in ancient Babylonia.

The divisions are specifically named in laws 197, 198, and 199, where punishment in decided for men, commoners, and slaves respectively. It clearly separates the repercussions of hurting people of lower socioeconomic standings

Slaves could be sold and exchanged, but it seems that four years was the maximum on how long a person could be enslaved. It doesn’t seem to be clear on whether or not slaves had any rights, or whether or not they were protected in some legal fashion from their masters. What is clear though is that their lives were inherently less valuable in the eyes of the law. It does seem likely that many of the laws were infact written with the intent to protect commoners from being harmed deeply by those more wealthy. Many laws are such that specific payments must be doled out in case of specific transgressions, or sometimes in normal trade deals. For example the specific lending rate as twenty percent is very interesting, but it isn’t quite clear as to the time rate which twenty percent applies to. Additionally repercussions are in place for overcharging on interest for debts, which benefits debtors, which are much more likely to be commoners rather than wealthy

I believe this provision of interaction between the lord and merchants further indicates that merchants are intended to exist in the social class separate from common folk that perform unskilled labor, or minor artisan work. Likely certain types of artisanship are of higher value than others, perhaps the person who inscribed these ery claws was regarded as important. It really isn’t completely clear what makes someone beyond just a simple commoner, but the fact of the matter is that there is a clear distinction in the laws of Hammurabi between those regarded as important and those regarded as common. Perhaps even there were instances of judges having to decide whether the victim would be paid a commoner price, or be treated as a man. I hope we will be able to further touch upon the