The most well-known Mesopotamian legal code is the Code of Hammurabi. It expressed legal philosophy and concerns for the weak, widows, and orphans.
Hammurabi, the sixth monarch of Babylonia’s First Dynasty, was a visionary and conqueror who sought to establish order in a chaotic and turbulent world. He acquired the throne from his father, Sin-Muballit, at a time when Babylon was a minor power among Mesopotamian city-states. As Hammurabi looked across his expanding kingdom, he realized that using power alone would not bring about long-lasting peace. He realized that winning his people’s hearts was equally important. He called his court’s best scribes and directed them to draft laws that would define justice in his kingdom.
At the summit, Hammurabi’s picture was boldly displayed alongside Shamash, the sun deity, with both figures clasped in a fierce embrace. Below them flowed a sea of cuneiform markings, a testimony to Hammurabi’s legal architecture. 4,130 lines of text explained the laws governing family, commerce, property, and justice. The Code of Hammurabi was inscribed on a 2.25-meter-high basalt stele, whose surface sparkled in the sunlight.
Even as decades passed and empires rose and fell, Hammurabi’s legacy lasted. His stele was subsequently transported as plunder to the faraway region of Susa, where it lay buried for years before being found in the early twentieth century. It is now proudly displayed in the Louvre Museum as a reminder of a time when one king dared to dream of justice in a divided world.