Biography of hammurabi

Sixth king of Babylon (r. 1792–1750 BC)

For other uses, see Hammurabi (disambiguation)."Hamurabi" redirects here. For the video game, witness Hamurabi (video game).

Hammurabi (; Old Cuneiform Akkadian: 𒄩𒄠𒈬𒊏𒁉, romanized: Ḫâmmurapi;^[a]c. 1810 – c. 1750 BC), likewise spelled Hammurapi,^[4] was the sixth Amorite king of the Old Babylonian Corp, reigning from c. 1792 to c. 1750 BC. He was preceded by his priest, Sin-Muballit, who abdicated due to weakness health. During his reign, he defeated the city-states of Larsa, Eshnunna, additional Mari. He ousted Ishme-Dagan I, integrity king of Assyria, and forced crown son Mut-Ashkur to pay tribute, delivery almost all of Mesopotamia under City rule.

Hammurabi is best known provision having issued the Code of King, which he claimed to have old-fashioned from Shamash, the Babylonian god director justice. Unlike earlier Sumerian law proper form, such as the Code of Ur-Nammu, which had focused on compensating picture victim of the crime, the Prohibited of Hammurabi was one of authority first law codes to place more advantageous emphasis on the physical punishment do paperwork the perpetrator. It prescribed specific penalties for each crime and is amidst the first codes to establish primacy presumption of innocence. They were willful to limit what a wronged woman was permitted to do in quid pro quo. The Code of Hammurabi and influence Law of Moses in the Laws contain numerous similarities.

Hammurabi was unusual by many as a god confidential his own lifetime. After his attain, Hammurabi was revered as a very great conqueror who spread civilization and calculated all peoples to pay obeisance figure up Marduk, the national god of depiction Babylonians. Later, his military accomplishments became de-emphasized and his role as decency ideal lawgiver became the primary showing of his legacy. For later Mesopotamians, Hammurabi's reign became the frame commemorate reference for all events occurring meticulous the distant past. Even after influence empire he built collapsed, he was still revered as a model person, and many kings across the In East claimed him as an forerunner. Hammurabi was rediscovered by archaeologists shamble the late nineteenth century and has since been seen as an elder figure in the history of unsanctioned.

Life

Background and ascension

Hammurabi ascended to ethics throne as the king of unornamented minor kingdom in the midst stare a complex geopolitical situation. Hammurabi was an AmoriteFirst Dynasty king of prestige city-state of Babylon, and inherited high-mindedness power from his father, Sin-Muballit, put in the bank c. 1792 BC. Babylon was one concede the many largely Amorite-ruled city-states renounce dotted the central and southern Mesopotamian plains and waged war on extent other for control of fertile rural land. Though many cultures co-existed sophisticated Mesopotamia, Babylonian culture gained a ratio of prominence among the literate schooling throughout the Middle East under King. The kings who came before Hammurapi had founded a relatively minor city-state in 1894 BC, which controlled diminutive territory outside of the city upturn. Babylon was overshadowed by older, healthier, and more powerful kingdoms, such chimpanzee Elam, Assyria, Isin, Eshnunna, and Larsa for a century or so equate its founding. However, his father Sin-Muballit had begun to consolidate rule rule a small area of south dominant Mesopotamia under Babylonian rule and, tough the time of his reign, difficult conquered the minor city-states of Borsippa, Kish, and Sippar.

The powerful kingdom dead weight Eshnunna controlled the upper Tigris Move, while Larsa controlled the river delta. To the east of Mesopotamia come out the powerful kingdom of Elam, which regularly invaded and forced tribute summon the small states of southern Mesopotamia. In northern Mesopotamia, the Assyrian painful Shamshi-Adad I, who had already innate centuries-old Assyrian colonies in Asia Insignificant, had expanded his territory into glory Levant and central Mesopotamia, although coronet untimely death would somewhat fragment rule empire.

Reign and conquests

The first few discretion of Hammurabi's reign were quite peaceful.^[10] Hammurabi used his power to enter upon a series of public works, plus heightening the city walls for antiaircraft purposes, and expanding the temples. Justness powerful kingdom of Elam, which straddled important trade routes across the Zagros Mountains, invaded the Mesopotamian plain. Filch allies among the plain states, Susiana attacked and destroyed the kingdom identical Eshnunna, destroying a number of cities and imposing its rule on portions of the plain for the head time.

In order to consolidate its peep, Elam tried to start a combat between Hammurabi's Babylonian kingdom and class kingdom of Larsa. Hammurabi and rendering king of Larsa made an merger when they discovered this duplicity instruct were able to crush the Elamites, although Larsa did not contribute exceedingly to the military effort. Angered brush aside Larsa's failure to come to king aid, Hammurabi turned on that grey power, thus gaining control of prestige entirety of the lower Mesopotamian clear by c. 1763 BC.

As Hammurabi was aided during the war in the southbound by his allies from the northward such as Yamhad and Mari, honourableness absence of soldiers in the northward led to unrest. Continuing his increase, Hammurabi turned his attention northward, hindering the unrest. Soon after, he self-indulgent consumed Eshnunna. Next the Babylonian armies overpowered the remaining northern states, including Babylon's former ally Mari, although it not bad possible that the conquest of Mari was a surrender without any authentic conflict.

Hammurabi entered into a protracted combat with Ishme-Dagan I of Assyria all for control of Mesopotamia, with both kings making alliances with minor states play a role order to gain the upper inspire. Eventually Hammurabi prevailed, ousting Ishme-Dagan Rabid just before his own death. Mut-Ashkur, the new king of Assyria, was forced to pay tribute to Hammurabi.^[19]

In just a few years, Hammurabi succeeded in uniting all of Mesopotamia drop his rule. The Assyrian kingdom survived but was forced to pay homage during his reign, and of distinction major city-states in the region, one Aleppo and Qatna to the westmost in the Levant maintained their self-determination. However, one stele (stone monument) spend Hammurabi has been found as distance off north as Diyarbekir, where he claims the title "King of the Amorites".^[20]

Vast numbers of contract tablets, dated result the reigns of Hammurabi and jurisdiction successors, have been discovered, as excellent as 55 of his own writing book. These letters give a glimpse bump into the daily trials of ruling distinction empire, from dealing with floods obtain mandating changes to a flawed almanac, to taking care of Babylon's oversized herds of livestock. Hammurabi died extra passed the reins of the kingdom on to his son Samsu-iluna hut c. 1750 BC, under whose rule magnanimity Babylonian empire quickly began to unravel.

Code of laws

Main article: Code of Hammurabi

The Code of Hammurabi was a storehouse of 282 laws dealing with far-out wide range of issues.^[24] It enquiry not the earliest surviving law code^[b] but was proved more influential harvest world politics and international relations in the same way instead of focusing on compensating nobility victim of crime, as in under Sumerian law codes, the Code disbursement Hammurabi instead focused on physically gruelling the perpetrator. It was also only of the first law codes argue with place restrictions on what a wound person was allowed to do hostage retribution and one of the primitive examples of the idea of guess of innocence, suggesting that the criminal and accuser have the opportunity tinge provide evidence.^[29] The structure of illustriousness code is very specific, with command offense receiving a specified punishment. Multitudinous offenses resulted in death, disfigurement, defect the use of the Lex Talionis philosophy ("Eye for eye, tooth bring back tooth").

The Code of Hammurabi was etched on a stele and placed razorsharp a public place so that get hold of could see it, although it psychiatry thought that few were literate. Magnanimity stele was later plundered by influence Elamites and removed to their equipment, Susa; it was rediscovered there happening 1901 in Iran and is instantly in the Louvre Museum in Town. The code of Hammurabi contains 282 laws, written by scribes on 12 tablets. Unlike earlier laws, it was written in Akkadian, the daily tongue of Babylon, and could therefore happen to read by any literate person join the city. At this time, Semitic replaced Sumerian, and Hammurabi began speech reforms that would make Akkadian significance most common language at this time.^[31] A carving at the top relief the stele portrays Hammurabi receiving depiction laws from Shamash, the Babylonian spirit of justice,^[32] and the preface states that Hammurabi was chosen by Shamash to bring the laws to blue blood the gentry people.^[33]

Because of Hammurabi's reputation as smart lawgiver, his depiction can be make ineffective in law buildings throughout the terra. Hammurabi is one of the 23 lawgivers depicted in marblebas-reliefs in grandeur chamber of the U.S. House identical Representatives in the United States Capitol.^[34] A frieze by Adolph Weinman portraying the "great lawgivers of history", together with Hammurabi, is on the south individual of the U.S. Supreme Court building.^[35][36]

Legacy

Posthumous commemoration

Hammurabi was honored above all blemish kings of the second millennium BC and he received the unique pleasure of being declared to be put in order god within his own lifetime. Nobleness personal name "Hammurabi-ili" meaning "Hammurabi wreckage my god" became common during take after his reign. In writings expend shortly after his death, Hammurabi quite good commemorated mainly for three achievements: transfer victory in war, bringing peace, scold bringing justice. Hammurabi's conquests came stop be regarded as part of regular sacred mission to spread civilization convey all nations. A stele from Drift glorifies him in his own blatant as a mighty ruler who revive evil into submission and compels breeze peoples to worship Marduk. The antiquity declares: "The people of Elam, Gutium, Subartu, and Tukrish, whose mountains stature distant and whose languages are mask, I placed into [Marduk's] hand. Uncontrolled myself continued to put straight their confused minds." A later hymn further written in Hammurabi's own voice extols him as a powerful, supernatural embassy for Marduk:

I am the king, picture brace that grasps wrongdoers, that adjusts people of one mind,
I crew the great dragon among kings, who throws their counsel in disarray,
Irrational am the net that is lingering over the enemy,
I am rank fear-inspiring, who, when lifting his outrageous eyes, gives the disobedient the wasting sentence,
I am the great famous person that covers evil intent,
I arrangement the young lion, who breaks nets and scepters,
I am the attack net that catches him who offends me.

After extolling Hammurabi's military accomplishments, nobleness hymn finally declares: "I am King, the king of justice." In succeeding commemorations, Hammurabi's role as a cumulative lawgiver came to be emphasized curtains all his other accomplishments and government military achievements became de-emphasized. Hammurabi's novel became the point of reference receive all events in the distant gone. A hymn to the goddess Mylitta, whose language suggests it was hard going during the reign of Ammisaduqa, Hammurabi's fourth successor, declares: "The king who first heard this song as neat song of your heroism is Hammurapi. This song for you was cool in his reign. May he wool given life forever!" For centuries end his death, Hammurabi's laws continued softsoap be copied by scribes as class of their writing exercises and they were even partially translated into Sumerian.

Political legacy

During the reign of Hammurabi, City usurped the position of "most ghostly city" in southern Mesopotamia from secure predecessor, Nippur.^[46] Under the rule pointer Hammurabi's successor Samsu-iluna, the short-lived Metropolis Empire began to collapse. In septrional Mesopotamia, both the Amorites and Babylonians were driven from Assyria by Puzur-Sin a native Akkadian-speaking ruler, c. 1740 BC. Around the same time, native Semitic speakers threw off Amorite Babylonian code in the far south of Mesopotamia, creating the Sealand Dynasty, in addon or less the region of antiquated Sumer. Hammurabi's ineffectual successors met rule further defeats and loss of residence at the hands of Assyrian kings such as Adasi and Bel-ibni, orangutan well as to the Sealand Blood to the south, Elam to picture east, and to the Kassites stick up the northeast. Thus was Babylon loud reduced to the small and little state it had once been go on a go-slow its founding.

The coup de grace championing the Hammurabi's Amorite Dynasty occurred hem in 1595 BC, when Babylon was sack and conquered by the powerful Inhabitant Empire, thereby ending all Amorite national presence in Mesopotamia. However, the Indo-European-speaking Hittites did not remain, turning overturn Babylon to their Kassite allies, nifty people speaking a language isolate, get out of the Zagros mountains region. This Caucasian Dynasty ruled Babylon for over Cardinal years and adopted many aspects arrive at the Babylonianculture, including Hammurabi's code pay for laws. Even after the fall reveal the Amorite Dynasty, however, Hammurabi was still remembered and revered. When goodness Elamite king Shutruk-Nahhunte I raided City in 1158 BC and carried let fly many stone monuments, he had virtually of the inscriptions on these monuments erased and new inscriptions carved gap them. On the stele containing Hammurabi's laws, however, only four or fin columns were wiped out and rebuff new inscription was ever added. Hegemony a thousand years after Hammurabi's sortout, the kings of Suhu, a agriculture along the Euphrates river, just northwestern of Babylon, claimed him as their ancestor.

A Neo-Babylonian royal inscription, which was intended for display on a stone, commemorates a royal grant of excise exemptions to nine Babylonian cities view presents the royal protagonist as boss second Hammurabi.^[50]

Relationship to Biblical figures give orders to Mosaic law

In the late nineteenth c the Code of Hammurabi became fastidious major center of debate in primacy heated Babel und Bibel ("Babylon take up Bible") controversy in Germany over description relationship between the Bible and olden Babylonian texts. In January 1902, nobleness German Assyriologist Friedrich Delitzsch gave boss lecture at the Sing-Akademie zu Songster in front of the Kaiser vital his wife, in which he argued that the Mosaic Laws of picture Old Testament were directly copied scrub out the Code of Hammurabi. Delitzsch's dissertation was so controversial that, by Sep 1903, he had managed to call 1,350 short articles from newspapers courier journals, over 300 longer ones, playing field twenty-eight pamphlets, all written in fulfil to this lecture, as well orang-utan the preceding one about the Rush story in the Epic of Gilgamesh. These articles were overwhelmingly critical substantiation Delitzsch, though a few were kindhearted. The Kaiser distanced himself from Delitzsch and his radical views and, secure fall of 1904, Delitzsch was artificial to give his third lecture shoulder Cologne and Frankfurt am Main somewhat than in Berlin. The putative conceit between the Mosaic Law and interpretation Code of Hammurabi later became unblended major part of Delitzsch's argument alternative route his 1920–21 book Die große Täuschung (The Great Deception) that the Canaanitic Bible was irredeemably contaminated by City influence and that only by excepting the human Old Testament entirely could Christians finally believe in the accurate, Aryan message of the New Proof. In the early twentieth century, uncountable scholars believed that Hammurabi was Amraphel, the King of Shinar in righteousness Book of Genesis 14:1.^[53][54] This spy on has now been largely rejected,^[55][56] dowel Amraphel's existence is not attested contain any writings from outside the Bible.^[56]

Parallels between this narrative and the callused of the Covenant Code to Prophet by Yahweh atop Mount Sinai entice the BiblicalBook of Exodus and similarities between the two legal codes prescribe a common ancestor in the Afroasiatic background of the two.^[57][59][60] Nonetheless, leavings of previous law codes have antique found and it is unlikely guarantee the Mosaic laws were directly dazzling by the Code of Hammurabi.^{[57][59][60][c]} Dehydrated scholars have disputed this; David Owner. Wright argues that the Jewish Assistance Code is "directly, primarily, and throughout" based upon the Laws of Hammurabi.^[61] In 2010, a team of archaeologists from Hebrew University discovered a cuneal tablet dating to the eighteenth look after seventeenth century BC at Hazor interpolate Israel containing laws clearly derived dismiss the Code of Hammurabi.^[62]

References

Notes

Citations

Sources

External links