Code of Hammurabi (Long Version)

Audience

The primary audience for the Code of Hammurabi would have been the gods and the local elite people of the city in which the stela bearing the code was erected. Although historians do not know for certain the original location of the law code stela, it was intended for display and would have been erected in a prominent place; the most likely such place was in front of the Ebabbar Temple of Shamash in Sippar. Thus, the primary audience would have been the priests and elites of the city of Sippar (all of whom had full access to the temple and could read the text written on the stela) as well as the Babylonian gods (who were thought of as omnipresent in their temples). For this audience, the stela would have functioned to display Hammurabi's judicial wisdom, confirm his close personal relationship with the local patron god, and demonstrate that he was a pious and faithful king.

Nonelite people would have also been a major audience for the Code of Hammurabi. The text itself declares that its purpose was to be read aloud to the people, particularly the unfortunate people who were downtrodden and in need of justice. In making his text accessible to the common people, most of whom were illiterate, Hammurabi attempted to legitimize himself in their eyes and gain their support. In so doing, he also took some political power away from the temples and local rulers who had previously provided law and order in their cities. By destabilizing the popular support for these local power structures, Hammurabi could more effectively establish and govern his central royal administration.

Hammurabi explicitly mentions a third major audience—future kings—in the epilogue, where he expresses his desire that later rulers will read his laws and emulate his judicial wisdom in creating their own law codes. Hammurabi probably intended that this future royal audience would foremost comprise his dynastic successors to the throne of Babylon, who continued to rule his kingdom for centuries and who probably did read his law code. The future royal audience for the Code of Hammurabi also included the many additional Babylonian kings who reigned after the end of Hammurabi's dynasty, as well as the Elamite king Shutruk-Nahhunte, who captured the Code of Hammurabi in 1165 BCE.