𒄩𒄠𒈬𒊏𒁉

The name Hammurabi is likely of Amorite origin, meaning 'Hammurabi is great' or possibly 'the kinsman is great' — a compound of the Amorite elements hammu (kinsman, clan) and rabi (great). He was the sixth king of the First Babylonian Dynasty, inheriting a kingdom of moderate size and expanding it through a combination of military conquest and diplomatic skill until Babylon controlled most of Mesopotamia. The Code of Hammurabi, inscribed around 1754 BCE on a 2.25-meter basalt stele, was not his only legal innovation, but it is the most complete surviving evidence of Mesopotamian jurisprudence and was copied and studied by scribes for more than a thousand years after his death.

The 282 laws of the Code cover an extraordinary range of civil and criminal matters: commercial transactions, property rights, wages, inheritance, adoption, marriage and divorce, professional liability, and criminal penalties. The famous 'eye for an eye' principle (lex talionis) appears explicitly: 'If a man has destroyed the eye of a member of the aristocracy, they shall destroy his eye.' But the code is more nuanced than this principle suggests. Penalties varied according to the social class of both the offender and the victim — freeborn citizens, freed persons, and slaves were treated differently. Commercial regulations were detailed and practical, setting fixed prices for various goods and services and establishing liability for shoddy workmanship. A builder whose house collapsed and killed the owner faced the death penalty; one whose house killed a son faced the death of the builder's son.

The Hammurabi stele was discovered by French archaeologists at Susa, in modern Iran, in 1901–1902, where it had been carried as war plunder by the Elamite king Shutruk-Nahhunte around 1158 BCE. The upper portion shows the famous relief of Hammurabi before Shamash; the lower portion is covered in cuneiform text on both sides. The stele is now in the Louvre, where it is one of the most visited objects in the museum. Several laws appear to have been erased from the lower section, presumably by the Elamites who brought it to Susa — possibly to inscribe their own text, or simply through damage. What remains, however, is sufficient to establish the Code as the most sustained and systematic legal document from the ancient world.

Hammurabi's name entered English through biblical studies and, after 1901, through direct archaeological publication. He is now recognized as one of the pivotal figures in legal history, and his code is taught in courses on the history of law as the earliest example of a written legal system aspiring to be comprehensive and public. The preamble and epilogue of the code are as significant as the laws themselves: Hammurabi presents himself as chosen by the gods to bring justice to the land, to protect the weak from the strong, and to establish equity. Whether or not he succeeded by any modern measure, the aspiration — the idea that law should be written, publicized, and equal in its application — is the founding claim of every legal system that followed.