Hammurabi's Code Prologue

The Code of Hammurabi is a well-preserved Babylonian law code, dating to ca. 1700 BCE (short chronology). The sixth Babylonian king, Hammurabi, enacted the code, and partial copies exist on a human-sized stone stele and various clay tablets. The Code consists of 282 laws, with scaled punishments, adjusting "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" (lex talionis) as graded depending on social status, of slave versus free man. One nearly complete example of the Code survives today, on a diorite stele in the shape of a huge index finger, 2.25 m or 7.4 ft tall. The Code is inscribed in the Akkadian language, using cuneiform script carved into the stele, today on display in the Louvre.