Hammurabi

Hammurabi was the sixth king of the Amorite dynasty of Babylon and succeeded his father Sin-muballit around 1792 BCE. His birth year is unknown; around 1810 BCE is a conventional estimate. The dates in this dossier follow the widely used 'middle chronology'; other schemes place his reign roughly half a century to a full century earlier or later.

Little is known about his family. His sister Iltani was a priestess of the sun god Shamash at Sippar, and one of his daughters married Silli-Sin, king of Eshnunna. His sons Sumu-ditana and Mutu-Numaha appear in the archives of Mari; Samsu-iluna became his successor. No sources survive on his youth or education.

The first decades of his reign are poorly documented. Each year was named after a significant event; these year names mainly concern temple work, offerings and public works, with a few short military successes. In his first regnal year he issued a justice edict cancelling certain debts, a traditional measure of new kings.

An invasion by Elam, which had subjugated Eshnunna, forced Babylon, Mari and Larsa to cooperate. Afterwards Hammurabi chose expansion: around 1763 BCE he conquered Larsa, soon afterwards Eshnunna, and between about 1761 and 1759 BCE Mari, which was destroyed. The order and exact dates of these campaigns are not all certain.

More than two hundred of Hammurabi's letters survive, mostly from Larsa. In them he directs governors such as Sin-iddinam in person on matters including irrigation, taxation, land allocation and lawsuits. He also had temples restored, city walls built and a canal dug that was named after him.

Towards the end of his reign he had his legal rulings recorded on a stele: a prologue, about 280 provisions by modern count, and an epilogue. At the top the king stands before an enthroned god, usually identified as Shamash, god of the sun and justice. The text presents Hammurabi as a just king; its precise function is debated.

After the fall of the Third Dynasty of Ur (around 2004 BCE), Mesopotamia was divided among kingdoms ruled by Amorite dynasties, such as Isin, Larsa, Eshnunna, Mari and Babylon; Elam lay to the east. Kings addressed each other as 'brother', 'father' or 'son' according to rank and bound themselves through oaths, marriages and envoys.

Kingship rested on divine selection and on care for justice and prosperity. Hammurabi called himself the shepherd of his people, chosen by gods such as Enlil and Marduk, and consulted the gods by liver divination before military decisions. Texts were written in cuneiform on clay and stone, in Akkadian and, as a scholarly language, in Sumerian.

His conquests shifted the balance of power: Larsa, Eshnunna and Mari disappeared as independent kingdoms and Babylon became the dominant power in Mesopotamia. His titles grew accordingly, to king of Sumer and Akkad and eventually king of the four quarters of the world. With Larsa, Sumerian scholars and texts also came to Babylon.

For the population this meant new administration, taxation and military service, and in Larsa the replacement of local law by Babylonian law. His campaigns brought destruction, such as of the palace at Mari, and deportations. His legal provisions deal with property, agriculture, debt, family, professions and slavery, with different rights for different social classes.

Hammurabi died around 1750 BCE, in the forty-third year of his reign, probably after a period of illness. His son Samsu-iluna could not keep the empire intact: revolts cost Babylon the south. The dynasty lasted until a Hittite attack in 1595 BCE (according to the middle chronology).

For centuries scribes continued to copy his laws, and later he was remembered chiefly as a lawgiver. The stele was carried off to Susa as war booty in the twelfth century BCE and was recovered there by French archaeologists in 1901–1902; it now stands in the Louvre. The image with this dossier is the relief at the top of the stele, the only confirmed depiction of Hammurabi.

Whether the Code of Hammurabi was an applied law code or chiefly a learned, commemorative royal monument is debated: other legal documents of his time do not demonstrably apply its provisions. In modern times he became a symbol of early lawmaking, for example in reliefs in American government buildings.