THE CODE OF LAWS PROMULGATED BY HAMMURABI, KING OF BABYLON b.c. 2285-2242 TRANSLATED by C. H. W. JOHNS, M.A. LECTURER IN ASSYRIOLOGY, QUEENS’ COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE author of “assyrian deeds and documents” “an assyrian doomsday book” EDINBURGH T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET 1903 PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB LIMITED FOR T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH london: simpkin, marshall, hamilton, kent, and co. limited new york: charles scribner’s sons first impression . . . February 1903. second imp

The Code of Hammurabi is one of the most important monuments in the history of the human race.  Containing as it does the laws which were enacted by a king of Babylonia in the third millennium B.C. , whose rule extended over the whole of Mesopotamia from the mouths of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates to the Mediterranean coast, we must regard it with interest.  But when we reflect that the ancient Hebrew tradition ascribed the migration of Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees to this very period, and

§ 1 .  If a man weave a spell and put a ban upon a man, and has not justified himself, he that wove the spell upon him shall be put to death. § 2 .  If a man has put a spell upon a man, and has not justified himself, he upon whom the spell is laid shall go to the holy river, he shall plunge into the holy river, and if the holy river overcome him, he who wove the spell upon him shall take to himself his house.  If the holy river makes that man to be innocent, and has saved him, he who laid the sp