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The stele is nearly two and a half metres tall, made of black diorite, carved with 282 laws and a bas-relief showing me receiving the commission from Shamash, the god of justice, who is handing me a rod and ring β the symbols of kingship and authority. The Elamites took it as war booty in the 12th century BC and carried it to Susa, where the French found it in 1901 and carried it to Paris.
The laws carved on this stone govern contracts, wages, inheritance, adoption, assault, and the rights of women and slaves. They are not the first law code β Ur-Nammu preceded me by three centuries. But they are the most complete, and the most copied. Law, once written, travels. The stele was moved by conquerors. The laws moved by being learned.
β Code of Hammurabi, Prologue and Epilogue (c. 1754 BC); Martha Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor (1997); stele, Louvre Museum, Paris.
Ancient Mesopotamia