Code of Hammurabi (1752 BCE)
Explanation and Analysis of the Document
The Code of Hammurabi is inscribed on a diorite stela seven and a half feet tall. Diorite is a very hard, lustrous black stone that was a highly desirable material for the production of permanent, unalterable, and impressive royal monuments in ancient Mesopotamia. This diorite stela was left in an irregular, natural shape, with a flat front, uneven top profile, and rounded back. Both sides were carved, with image and text, almost in their entirety.
The text on the monument was written in Akkadian, a Babylonian-based Semitic language that was commonly spoken throughout Mesopotamia in the Old Babylonian period. Cuneiform (“wedge-shaped”) script was used to write Akkadian. On this stela, the cuneiform text was carved in a vertical orientation, as had been used to write Sumerian and early Akkadian documents. The vertical script orientation seems to have been going out of use in the Old Babylonian period, in favor of the horizontal...
