The Code of Hammurabi
3/12/202650 min
Misha Glenny and guests discuss the laws that Hammurabi (c1810 - c1750 BC), King of Babylon, had carved into a black basalt pillar in present day Iraq and which, since its rediscovery in 1901 in present day Iran, has affirmed Hammurabi's reputation as one of the first great lawmakers. Visitors to the Louvre in Paris can see it on display with almost 300 rules in cuneiform, covering anything from ‘an eye for an eye’ to how to handle murder, divorce, witchcraft, false accusations and more. The Code of Hammurabi, as it became known, made such an impression in Mesopotamia that it was copied and shared for a millennium after his death and, since its reemergence, Hammurabi and his Code have been commemorated in the US Capitol and the International Court of Justice.
With
Martin Worthington Professor in Middle Eastern Studies at Trinity College Dublin
Frances Reynolds Shillito Fellow and Associate Professor of Assyriology at the University of Oxford and Senior Research Fellow at The Queen’s College
And
Selena Wisnom Lecturer in the Heritage of the Middle East at the University of Leicester
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
Zainab Bahrani, Mesopotamia: Ancient Art and Architecture (Thames and Hudson, 2017)
Dominique Charpin, Hammurabi of Babylon (I.B. Tauris, 2021)
Prudence O. Harper, Joan Aruz and Françoise Tallon, The Royal City of Susa: Ancient Near Eastern Treasures from the Louvre (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1992)
J. Nicholas Postgate (ed.), Languages of Iraq, Ancient and Modern (British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 2007), especially ‘Babylonian and Assyrian: A History of Akkadian’ by Andrew R. George
Martha T. Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor (2nd edition, Scholars Press, 1997)
Marc Van De Mieroop, King Hammurabi of Babylon: A Biography (Wiley, 2005)
Marc Van De Mieroop, A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000–323 BC (4th edition (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006)
Selena Wisnom, The Library of Ancient Wisdom: Mesopotamia and the Making of History (Allen Lane, 2025)
Martin Worthington, Complete Babylonian: A Comprehensive Guide to Reading and Understanding Babylonian with Original Texts (Teach Yourself Library, 2012)
In Our Time is a BBC Studios Production
Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.
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First 90 secondsMartin Worthington· Guest0:00
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[short jingle] This is In Our Time from BBC Radio 4, and this is one of more than a thousand episodes you can find in the In Our Time archive. A reading list for this edition can be found in the episode description wherever you're listening. I hope you enjoy the program. Hello. Almost four thousand years ago, Hammurabi, king of Babylon, had his laws carved into a black basalt pillar for all to see. There were rules on an eye for an eye, how to handle murder, divorce, witchcraft, false accusations, and much more. They were so impressive that they were copied and shared for the next millennium. And when what's now known as the Code of Hammurabi re-emerged last century and was displayed in the Louvre, the king's reputation as a law giver