In ancient Mesopotamia, a written set of laws adopted by a ruler or his kingdom was quickly established as the foundational governing document. The emergence of royal decrees came about due to the special conditions surrounding the establishment and development of multiple federations due to war, coups, conquests, the formation of territorial and political treaties, the rise or fall in power of a particular ruler, or the rising supremacy of one ethnic group or another. The relatively early establishment of commodity/money exchanges and the development of domestic and foreign trade also stimulated the formation of royal legislation. Babylon was one of the principle centers in the ancient world for international trade.

The first legislative acts come to us (though not in their complete forms) herald from the ancient laws of King Ur-Nammu, the founder of the Ur Dynasty at the end of the 3rd millennium BC, the laws of Lipit-Ishtar, the ruler of the kingdom of Isin, the laws of King Bilalama and the kingdom of Eshnunna (from the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC), and most significantly, the laws of King Hammurabi (1792–1750 BC), who was the ancient Babylonian ruler of the largest city-state within Ancient Mesopotamia.

The laws of Ur-Nammu begin with a prologue about historical events and the good deeds of the current king who “established justice within the country, banishing evil and discord.” A number of legislative innovations follow, the most notable of which was the establishment of a system of weights and measures in relation to the mina and shekel as a guarantee of the justice of the new system “so that the orphan will not be crushed under the dominion of the rich, the widow under the rule of the strong, nor the man of a single shekel under the power of a man of a mina”.

Other laws followed in a similar vein: a preamble and recounting of current laws and the formulation of new laws.

The main purpose of the lofty preambles (which are especially exemplified in the laws of King Hammurabi), was to advertise the justness and overarching good merits of the ruler in order to justify the necessity of the royal directives and legitimate the royal rule itself.

Thus, Hammurabi invokes his God-given, ultimate rule as the “king of kings”, who has bestowed many favors upon the most important Mesopotamian cities and their holy temples. Babylon, at this point, is the capital of a large, centralized kingdom and the dwelling “eternal grandeur” for its principle god, Marduk, who tasked Hammurabi “to provide justice to the country”.

Despite the similarities (which are sometimes textual) and the conformity to a set number of patterns, all of these laws cannot help but contain profound differences as each legal act reflected the realities of its time and the peculiarities of its own government.

Traditionally, Mesopotamian laws focused on legal breaches in manners related to the damage of property or injury to a person. Penalties and compensation for the damage were detailed for multiple crimes: theft, bodily injury, violation of an owner’s authority over his slaves, instances of witchcraft, violence against women, and a wife’s marital unfaithfulness.

Harsh punishments were prescribed for such crimes as perjury and slander. These crimes were linked to an understanding of “honesty” and the trustworthiness of one’s word and personal honor and had implications for deification.

In time, as trade and economic growth increased, the focus of laws shifted to deal with the issues of the day: usury, indentured servitude, land leases, sales, and property inheritance cases due to the decline of large families. Laws focusing on these matters were, generally, incomplete. King Hammurabi’s laws principally served to regulate interactions between the Monarchy and Temple economies. They did not touch on many important issues related to interactions between city-states, or concerning the relationship between the citizenry and the monarchy.

It was not uncommon for the laws to simply decree one act or another to be unlawful without defining penalties (for such serious crimes such as murder or witchcraft, for example). The omission of such penalties bears witnesses to the fact that the laws sprang from local traditions and it was these same communities and traditions which determined the penalties. Traditions were the principle building block for the royal codex.

The laws of Mesopotamia, as well as those of other ancient governments, were markedly influenced by the religious practices of the day. Still, the impact of religion on the laws was not as pronounced as in India, for example. The religious ideology conveyed through the laws also differed in several specific ways.

 

 

For example, the sins listed in the Sherpu, the Babylonian book of religious rituals (C 12th BC) and the list of crimes enumerated in King Hammurabi’s Laws were virtually identical. The Sherpu included sins that were ceremonial in nature (direct and indirect contact with a person who was ceremonially “unclean”, eating “unclean” food, etc.), any lie, deception, conspiracy, force, omission of help to those in need, unfaithfulness, deliberate actions to create discord within the family, and similar actions which are clearly enshrined as crimes within the laws of King Hammurabi: theft (articles 6–8), bearing false witness or bringing a false accusation of wrong doing (articles 11, 126), grand-theft (article 22), shedding of blood (articles 206–208), a disrespectful stance towards parents and elders (articles 169, 195), adultery (article 129) and others.

However, the Babylonian concept of sin, an intentional or unintentional violation of the will of god, differed from the concept of crime. Sins could occur without the presence of guilt, as in the case of a violation of ceremonial cleanliness. If a crime was committed, however, culpability was usually, though not always equally, designated. “Heavenly” judgement neither subjectively nor objectively allotted a sinful action to a punishment. Any sin could warrant any punishment. The gods could send any calamity they wished and only through the intercession of a priest or magician (without the means of repentance) could one hope to escape their fury. Earthly justice, however, as well as repentance, was considered inevitable in the case of a crime.

Concepts regarding hell, heaven, an afterlife, and posthumous rewards for a righteous life, were not greatly developed within Mesopotamian religious beliefs. An understanding of a netherworld as a place of complete evil formed around the beginning of the second millennium BC. All that was good was connected to the present life on earth. Wealth and material well-being (which encompassed health, a long life, and children), allowed one access to numerous pleasures and was considered, along with service to the gods, to be the chief purpose of man. This Sumerian-Babylonian