Khammurabi

“ The reign of Khammurabi is a convenient point at which to observe general changes in and later introductions to the pantheon of the Babylonian gods. The political alterations in the kingdom were reflected in the divine circle. Certain gods were relegated to the cold shades of obscurity, whilst new deities were adopted and others, hitherto regarded as negligible quantities, were exalted to the heights of heavenly omnipotence. The worship of Merodach first came into prominence in the days of Khammurabi. ”

“ Prior to the days of Khammurabi a rather different pantheon from that described in later inscriptions held sway. In those more primitive days the principal gods appear to have been Bel or En-lil, Belit or Nin-lil his queen, Nin-girsu, Ea, Nergal, Shamash, Sin, Anu, and other lesser divinities. There is indeed a sharp distinction between the pre- and post-Khammurabic types of religion. Attempts had been made to form a pantheon [Pg 95] before Khammurabi's day, but his exaltation of Merodach, the patron of Babylon, to the head of the Babylonian pantheon was destined to destroy these. ”

“ Not only did he hold sway without a rival in the south as in the north, but the titles indicating the rights he had acquired over Sumer and Accad were inserted in his Protocol after those denoting his hereditary possessions,—the city of Bel and the four houses of the world. Khammurabi’s victory marks the close of those long centuries of gradual evolution during which the peoples of the Lower Euphrates passed from division to unity. Before his reign there had been as many states as cities, and as many dynasties as there were states; after him there was but one kingdom under one line of kings. ”

“ Vast numbers of contract tablets, dated in the reigns of Khammurabi and other kings of the dynasty, have been discovered, as well as autograph letters of the kings themselves, more especially of Khammurabi. Among the latter is one ordering the despatch of 240 soldiers from Assyria and Situllum, a proof that Assyria was at the time a Babylonian dependency. Constant intercourse was kept up between Babylonia and the west, Babylonian officials and troops passing to Syria and Canaan, while “Amorite” colonists were established in Babylonia for the purposes of trade. ”

“ The early connexion between Merodach and Shamash had probably much to do with the great popularity of the latter. That this was the case, so far at least as Khammurabi was concerned, is obvious from certain of his inscriptions, in which he alludes in the same sentence to Merodach and Shamash and to their close relationship. Khammurabi appears also to have been greatly attached to the cult of a goddess Innana or Ninni ('lady' or 'great lady') , who was evidently the consort of some male deity. He improved her temple at Hallabi and speaks of her as placing the reins of power in his hands. ”

“ Susa, where the full code of Khammurabi was found, was the capital of the kingdom of a people called Elamites, of whom you hear in the Bible. Elam lay on the eastern, the Persian, side of Babylonia, and the Elamites gave continual trouble to the Babylonian conquerors. The code is cut on a great block of black stone eight feet high. It is in forty-four columns and consists of no less than 3654 lines—a lengthy document. And at the top of it there is cut the figure of King Khammurabi receiving the tablets of the law from Shamash, the great sun-god. ”

“ Babylonian influence lasted for centuries in western Asia. In the age of Abraham the Amorites still obeyed the suzerainty of the Babylonian kings. Khammurabi, the Amraphel of the Book of Genesis, calls himself king of the country of the Amorites as well as of Babylon, and his great-grandson does the same. At a later date Babylonia itself was conquered by a foreign line of kings, and Canaan recovered its independence. ”

“ He is supposed to throw open the gates of the morning and raise his head over the horizon, lighting up the heaven and earth with his beams. The knowledge of justice and injustice and the virtue of righteousness were attributed to him, and he was regarded as a judge between good and evil, for as the light of the sun penetrates everywhere, and nothing can be hidden from its beams, it is not strange that it should stand as the symbol for justice. Shamash appears at the head of the inscription which bears the laws of Khammurabi, and here he stands as the symbol for justice. ”

“ Merodach is invested by Khammurabi with all the attributes of a supreme Semitic Baal. His solar character falls into the background; he becomes the lord of gods and men, who delivers the weak and punishes the proud. The office of judge, which belonged to him as the sun-god, is amplified; the wisdom he had derived from Ea is made part of his original nature; his quality of mercy is insisted on again and again. Like the Semitic Baal, he is the father of his people, the mighty king who rules the world and occupies the foremost place in the council of the gods. ”

“ As to the officials who have resisted you in the accomplishment of their work, do not impose upon them any additional task, but oblige them to do what they ought to have performed, and then remove them from the influence of him who has brought them.”
Long before the age of Khammurabi a royal post had been established in Babylon for the conveyance of letters. Fragments of clay had been found at Tello, bearing the impressions of seals belonging to the officials of Sargon of Akkad and his successor, and addressed to the viceroy of Lagas, to King Naram-Sin and other personages. ”

“ External evidence, which recognizes no universal deluge and no dispersal of mankind in the third millennium B.C., throws its own light upon the opening centuries of the second. It has revealed conditions which are not reflected in Genesis, and important facts upon which the book is silent—unless, indeed, there is a passing allusion to the great Babylonian monarch Khammurabi in the Amraphel of Gen. ”

“ If a great people has frequently evolved a legal code of sterling merit there are cases on record where such an institution has served to make a people great, and it is probably no injustice to the Semites of Babylonia to say of them that the code of Khammurabi made them what they were. A copy of this world-famous code was found at Susa by J. de Morgan, and is now in the Louvre.
What the Babylonian chronologists called 'the First Dynasty of Babylon' fell in its turn, and it is claimed that a Sumerian line of eleven kings took its place. ”

“ Once more the curtain falls, and Canaan is hidden for a while out of our sight. Babylonia has become a united kingdom with its capital and centre at Babylon. Khammurabi (B.C. 2356-2301) has succeeded in shaking off the suzerainty of {63} Elam, in overthrowing his rival Eri-Aku, king of Larsa, with his Elamite allies, and in constituting himself sole monarch of Babylonia. His family seems to have been in part, if not wholly, of South Arabian extraction. Their names are Arabian rather than Babylonian, and the Babylonian scribes found a difficulty in transcribing them correctly. ”

“ But even under this system certain crimes were in Anglo-Saxon law bot-less, i.e. no compensation could be paid, and the offender must suffer the penalty of death. In the laws of Khammurabi, king of Babylon (2285–2242 B.C.) , the death penalty is imposed for many offences. The modes for executing it specially named are burning, drowning and impalement (Oldest Code of Laws, by C. H. W. Johns, 1903) . Under the Roman law, “capital” punishment also included punishments which deprived the offender of the status of Roman citizen (capitis deminutio, capitis amissio) , e.g. ”

“ Ashnunak was a border district, and shared the fate of all the provinces on the eastern bank of the Tigris, being held sometimes by Elam and sometimes by Chaldæa; properly speaking, it was a country of Semitic speech, and was governed by viceroys owning allegiance, now to Babylon, now to Susa.* Khammurabi seized this province, and permanently secured its frontier by building along the river a line of fortresses surrounded by earthworks. Following the example of his predecessors, he set himself to restore and enrich the temples. ”

“ Of fundamental importance are the Amarna cuneiform tablets discovered in 1887, containing some of the political correspondence between Western Asia and Egypt for a few years of the reigns of Amenophis III. and IV. (c. 1414–1360) . [11] The first Babylonian dynasty, now well known for its Khammurabi, belonged to the past, but the cuneiform script and language are still used among the Hittites of Asia Minor (centring at Boghaz-keui) and the kings of Syria and Palestine. ”

“ Khammurabi, to whom Babylon owed its position and influence, even transferred the ancient temple of the god of Borsippa to the god of Babylon, and included him among the inferior deities to whom chapels were erected in the great sanctuary of Merodach.287 But the god of Borsippa had once been as independent and supreme in his own city as Merodach was at Babylon. He had been addressed as “the maker” of the universe and the irrigator of the fields, and the origin of the cuneiform system of writing was ascribed to him. ”

“ When a man married, he left his father and mother and was expected to “cleave” unto his wife, and they became “one flesh” and inhabited “one house”; in short, the Assyrian “home” was normally the same as the English “home” of to-day. As in the time of Khammurabi, women could be legal owners of property, and often owned farms and occupied vineyards.
The general pursuits of the people were much the same as those followed by the earlier inhabitants of Mesopotamia. The population was, as then, largely agricultural ”

“ Eimsin vainly appealed for help against him to his relative and suzerain Kudur-lagamar, who had succeeded Simtishilkhak at Susa. Eimsin was defeated, and disappeared from the scene of action, leaving no trace behind him, though we may infer that he took refuge in his fief of Yamutbal. The conquest by Khammurabi was by no means achieved at one blow, the enemy offering an obstinate resistance. He was forced to destroy several fortresses, the inhabitants of which had either risen against him or had refused to do him homage, among them being those of Meîr* and Malgu. ”

“ Unfortunately the head, hands and feet of this statue are missing, but the small part of the head which is preserved, though having an Pg 230abundance of hair shows no trace of the elaborate curls of later days, the beard being represented by a series of twelve or more corrugated strands, thereby recalling the Babylonian statues of the Khammurabi period. The clothing consists of a close-fitting garment made of a simple fine-textured material, and is decorated with a fringe.
Of Assyrian royal statues that of Ashur-naṣir-pal (cf. Pl. XXIV, C) is the best preserved and the most successful. ”

“ Hammurabi's code, the most ancient known, says "Anna and Bel called me, Hammurabi the exalted prince, the worshiper of the gods; to cause justice to prevail in the land, to destroy the wicked, to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak, to go forth like the sun over the black-head race, to enlighten the land, and to further the welfare of the people." ”

“ For about twenty years afterwards that subdued monarch lived in comparative obscurity; then he led a force of allies against Hammurabi's son and successor, Samsu-iluna, who defeated him and put him to death, capturing, in the course of his campaign, the revolting cities of Emutbalum, Erech, and Isin. So was the last smouldering ember of Elamite power stamped out in Babylonia.
Hammurabi, statesman and general, is one of the great personalities of the ancient world. No more celebrated monarch ever held sway in Western Asia. ”

“ The inscriptions of king Hammurabi (i. e. "the sun-god is great") discovered at Babylon, Zerghul, and Tell Sifr, tell us that the gods El and Bel had delivered the inhabitants of Sumir and Accad to his dominion, that he had overthrown Elam, and conquered Mabuk (p. 251) , and that he had caused the river Hammurabi (i. e. the canal of that name) to be dug for the benefit of the Babylonians, and had provided a constant supply of water for Sumir and Accad. ”

“ Banke that on this document in the Pennsylvania Museum the contracting parties swear by the name of Hammurabi and also by that of Shamshi-Adad. As only gods and kings are mentioned in the oath formulas of this period, it follows that Shamshi-Adad was a king, or at any rate a patesi or ishshakku. Now from its form the name Shamshi-Adad must be that of an Assyrian, not that of a Babylonian, and, since he is associated in the oath formula with Hammurabi, it is legitimate to conclude that he governed Assyria in the time of Hammurabi as a dependency of Babylon. ”

“ On the upper part of the stele, which is now one of the treasures of the Louvre, Paris, King Hammurabi salutes, with his right hand reverently upraised, the sun god Shamash, seated on his throne, at the summit of E-sagila, by whom he is being presented with the stylus with which to inscribe the legal code. Both figures are heavily bearded, but have shaven lips and chins. The god wears a conical headdress and a flounced robe suspended from his left shoulder, while the king has assumed a round dome-shaped hat and a flowing garment which almost sweeps the ground. ”

“ I have rested in Babylon, I have rested in the town of Babylon, the town of Anu and Bêl their head. In Sagila the temple whose foundations stand firm as heaven and earth, I have in order to speak the right of the land, to determine the matters of conflict, to heal the injuries of, my valuable words I have inscribed upon my memorial stone, upon my image, erected as a king of justice, who rises above the kings of the city am I.
My words are well considered, my wisdom has not its equal; upon the laws of Shamash, the great judge of heaven and earth, righteousness is to rise up in the land ”