Hammurabi Dbq Analysis

With the help of laws that had punishments like loosing a hand or an eyeball, looking back into Babylonian society was made a lot easier. These laws were created by the king of the city-state Babylon around 1792 BCE, Hammurabi. His reasoning for enforcing the laws, known as Hammurabi’s code, was to protect the weak and those who could not help themselves (doc B). He created 282 laws, and carved them onto a stele, a pillar-like stone. The multiple steles, he created and placed around the kingdom, consisted of a carving of him with Shamash, the god of justice, a prologue, the written laws and an epilogue (doc A). Hammurabi’s code includes laws whose punishments range from death to receiving shekels of silver. Since the repercussions are either very extreme or relatively fair, Hammurabi’s code is both just

Hammurabi claimed that his laws were both just and helpful to a wide range of people, but the majority of the laws don’t support either of his claims. In the instance of many laws, he appears to be very drastic with his consequences. In one of his codes, he says that if a women is caught in adultery with another man, both people must be tied up and thrown into the water (doc C, law 129). The act of binding the two people together and drowning them is a very specific and extreme repercussion for cheating. Another example of Hammurabi’s unnecessary harshness, was the law stating that if a man has broken into another’s house he shall be put to death by piercing him or hanging him in the hole which he made in the house (doc D, law 21). His code of laws is unjust because of the needless, abusive punishments. In addition, Hammurabi did not