Hammurabi Code Essay

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The Hammurabi Code is a set of laws and regulations created by the Babylonian King Hammurabi near the end of his reign in estimatedly 1750 B.C. King Hammurabi saw that with his growing empire there was a need for justice, so he set into place two hundred and eighty two laws and regulations for his people that people can still recognized today. For example, the saying “an eye for an eye” is apart of the Hammurabi Code. This code is one of the most complete forms of written laws from the time period but is not the first documented set of laws as contradictory to popular belief. The first documented set of laws are tablets from the ancient city of Ebla which is in modern day Syria and are estimately six hundred years older than the Hammurabi Code. The “code is also one of the earliest examples of the idea of the accused being considered …show more content…

The Hammurabi Code was found in 1901 by Jacques de Morgan who was a French mining engineer leading an archaeology dig discovered the code in modern day Iran in the ancient city of Susa. The code is written on a black stone finger-shaped pillar seven foot five inches tall.
The Code documents laws and regulations according to all matters, the code tells of laws about rape, divorce, malpractice, theft, inheritance, women cheating on spouse, incest, having more than one wife, accusing others, and other matters. The Code shows the different of penalties between the three babylonian classes, “ the propertied class, freedmen, and slaves” (history.com). For example the code states “If during a quarrel one man strike another and wound him, then he shall swear, "I did not injure him wittingly," and pay the physicians. If the man die of his wound, he shall swear similarly, and if he (the deceased) was a

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