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Hammurabi was the sixth king of the Amorite dynasty, who had a residence in the year of Babylon. In 1783 BC, he began a series of military campaigns that led to creating an empire from Mari and Nineveh to the Persian Gulf. The heyday of the Babylonian kingdom falls on King Hammurabi’s reign in the 18th century BC. The Hammurabi Codex has compiled around 1755-1752 BC, that is, at the end of the rule of Hammurabi. The Code was based on materials of judicial practice, norms of customary law, and borrowing from more ancient Sumerian codes. For historians, the importance of this document lies in the enormous influence of the Code on the development of ancient Eastern legal culture. The document contains information about the lifestyle of the inhabitants of the Old Babylonian Empire; therefore, the Code is vital for historians also for understand the mentality of this archaic Eastern community.
The Babylonian society was divided into three estates – the royal people, community members, and slaves. Although the Babylonians kept slaves, these people (the slaves) also had rights. For example, it was not allowed to enslave children born in a marriage between “the slave of a freed man” and “the daughter of a free man.” By protecting the poor from the rich, the Hammurabi code set a deadline for debt slavery. Power in ancient Babylonian culture arose from economic inequality between the poor and the rich. The archaic Code of Hammurabi thus provides historians with an opportunity to become familiar with the social structure of society at that time.
Hammurabi’s activities aimed to strengthen state power in the economy and politics while simultaneously establishing severe restrictions on the private economic initiative. Among the methods of regulating the economies were fixed rates on loans and the system of state lending to individuals through authorized agents of the royal palace and return of real estate previously sold for debts to the original owner. An example of the regulation of debt relations can be considered the impossibility to transfer as debt the “field, house, and garden” indicated in the Code. The legislative acts of that time that have come down to historians are essential for analyzing debt relations of antiquity.
The Code of Hammurabi, formed based on the legal systems of Ancient Sumer, had a significant impact on the development of the legislation of neighboring countries and subsequent eras. Previously not systematized norms of the law were presented in the Code more structurally and consistently. If residents did not have a consensus regarding the resolution of specific cases, the corresponding provisions were introduced into the Code, thus becoming a source of law. Therefore, studying the Code, historians begin to understand the general trends in the emergence of sources of law in ancient societies.
In the legislative formulations of the Hammurabi Code, there is no connection with a religious component. This circumstance makes this document the first purely legislative act in the history of humanity. Cult and ritual moments are touched upon only in the non-legal parts of the Code. Accordingly, historians can assume that power was not strongly associated with religion or worship in the analyzed ancient Babylonian society.
The Hammurabi Code makes it possible to assess the nature and content of the institution of debt relations that developed in Ancient Mesopotamia, subjects of property rights, and other economic institutions and their role in the economic life of that time. The data contained in this legal document gives the ability to restore the socio-economic system of Mesopotamia. Due to the Code, historians can find out what the society of Mesopotamia was like, what laws were like, what roles each estate played.
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