c. 1750 BCE / West Asia & North Africa
The Code of Hammurabi and Babylonian Kingship
A Babylonian ruler had disputes over families, property, and work inscribed on a stone stele, asserting royal power through judicial authority and leaving a record of ancient social hierarchies.
The story
After expanding his rule, King Hammurabi of Babylon had a collection of legal judgments inscribed on a stone stele around 1750 BCE, addressing marriage, inheritance, loans, trade, and labor. Its relief links the ruler to Shamash, the sun god who presided over justice, making judicial authority an expression of royal legitimacy. The provisions prescribe different punishments according to status and social rank, revealing the unequal order of the time. This was neither the world's earliest law nor a complete legal code in the modern sense; the surviving text is closer to a compilation of judgments and royal ideals, and does not establish that every case was decided according to its provisions.
Elsewhere in the world
During Hammurabi's time, Egypt was still in the later Middle Kingdom, while the Indus region had entered a transition toward regionalization after its mature urban phase. States and settlement orders did not develop in step across regions.
Dates and precision
c. 1750 BCE Approximate year
An archaeological or scholarly estimate, rather than a claim that an event occurred in one exact year.
Representative map location
Representative coordinates · 32.542°, 44.421°
Coordinates locate a representative point for the story. They do not mean the event happened only here and do not represent historical borders.
Bibliography
- Louvre | The Code of Hammurabi
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art | South Asia, 2000–1000 BCE: After the Harappan Cities
Sources are listed as bibliography titles, without external links. A reference does not mean every sentence or interpretation has been independently verified.