Hammurabi

Biography

Hammurabi of Babylon conquered Larsa, Eshnunna, Mari, unified Mesopotamia. The Code, 282 laws on a diorite stele, Shamash god granting the laws at the top, the innocent until proven guilty presumption, wages, divorce, the eye for an eye lex talionis by class. The stele taken as loot to Susa, found 1901, now in the Louvre. The law before Moses by centuries, the foundation myth of legal civilization.