Code of Hammurabi (Long Version)

Impact

The Code of Hammurabi had its intended impact: The kingdom was consolidated and secured, Hammurabi's rule was seen as legitimate, and his royal line was able to rule successfully over most of his kingdom for a further 155 years. The lawmaking impact of the code, however, was not so straightforward. Most actual recorded legal cases from the Old Babylonian period do not follow Hammurabi's system of justice and punishments, and the prices set for goods in his laws were never instituted. Scholars still debate why such discrepancies existed between the Code of Hammurabi and actual Old Babylonian legal practice.

Hammurabi's laws did, however, influence Babylonian legal scholarship. The laws were distributed throughout the kingdom on clay tablets, dozens of which have been recovered from excavations around Babylonia. Extracts and commentaries on the laws have also been found, some of which are roughly contemporary with the erection of the stela, and some of which date to much later periods. The existence of these secondary, analytical documents indicates that the Code of Hammurabi, for all its propagandistic functions, made a considerable and long-lasting impact on legal and scholarly thinking across Babylonia. This influence can be seen in Mesopotamian history, as later kings utilized the Code of Hammurabi as the foundational document of their own law codes.

The effect of the Code of Hammurabi on greater civilization has been substantial. Ever since the monument was unearthed during the French excavations of Susa in 1901–1902 and deciphered by Assyriologists, the code has held a prominent place in both the scholarly conception and popular imagination of ancient Babylon. It is now known that Hammurabi's was not the first law code to be established; the oldest surviving law code is that of King Shulgi of the Third Dynasty of Ur (ca. 2074 BCE), and even that law code was preceded by judicial proclamations and records of court proceedings from earlier periods of Mesopotamian history. Scholars also no longer think that Hammurabi's laws were strictly meant to be followed but rather were intended to demonstrate his power, divine sanction, and role as king of justice. However, none of these subsequent finds have lessened the Code of Hammurabi's impact over the centuries. Hammurabi is still the author of the longest and most organized of the law codes from the ancient Near East, in which he created order for a vast society and, perhaps most significantly, provided help and justice for the oppressed, the lower classes, women, and children. Because of his groundbreaking law code, Hammurabi's fame continued throughout Mesopotamian history. Now, as a result of its rediscovery, he is famous in modern culture as well.