ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIAN JUSTICE SYSTEM
The world's oldest surviving judicial code is the code of King Ur-Nammu from the third dynasty of Ur in 2250 B.C. The first texts dealing with ideal justice were found on the clay tablets of Shulgi of Ur, who ruled from about 2079 to 2032 B.C.
In Mesopotamia there were legal codes but no lawyers. Parties involved in disputes had to plead their cases directly to government authorities, often people close to the king or the king himself. All legal decisions and agreements were ratified by an oath taken before the gods and subject to their wrath or punishment if the agreement was broken.
In the cuneiform libraries there are records of divorces and petty theft trials. In a murder case involving a woman one person who spoke in her defense said: "granted that she killed her husband — what can a [mere] woman do that she should be killed?" But in the end though the court decided "her guilt exceeds that of the ones who were killed..."
Morris Jastrow said: “The judge stands in the place of deity according to the general view prevailing in antiquity. If he fail in the proper discharge of his duties, he lowers the dignity of his office; and the deity, by permitting him to go astray, shows that he no longer desires the judge to speak in his name. Confidence in the probity and ability of the judge is the conditio sine qud non of the execution of justice. Defective as this uncompromising attitude toward a judicial error may be from a modern standpoint in not recognising an appeal from a lower to a higher court, the ethical basis is both sound and of a high order. With such a provision, which speaks volumes for the standards obtaining in the days of Hammurabi, the integrity of the courts was firmly secured for all time. Equally noteworthy and more modern in its spirit is the provision that a false witness, whose testimony jeopardises the life of another, shall be put to death. One is reminded of the Venetian law quoted by Portia that the life of him who places a citizen in jeopardy “lies in the mercy of the Duke only, ’gainst all other voice.” If the false testimony involves property, the false witness must pay the amount involved in the suit.” [Source: Morris Jastrow, Lectures more than ten years after publishing his book “Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria” 1911]
The Babylonians had police. In Mesopotamian times, brigands roamed the countryside. Occasionally soldiers on horseback were sent on missions to shoot them or arrest them.
See Separate Articles:
LAWS AND CONTRACTS IN MESOPOTAMIA africame.factsanddetails.com
CODE OF HAMMURABI: HISTORY, CONTENT, ETHICS AND PUNISHMENT africame.factsanddetails.com ;
HAMMURABI'S CODE OF LAWS ON CRIMES, FINES SOLDIERS AND LEGAL MATTERS africame.factsanddetails.com ;
HAMMURABI'S CODE OF LAWS ON WOMEN, DIVORCE AND FAMILY AND PERSONAL MATTERS africame.factsanddetails.com ;
HAMMURABI'S CODE OF LAWS ON SLAVES, JOBS AND BUSINESS africame.factsanddetails.com
HAMMURABI'S CODE OF LAWS ON FARMING, HERDING AND AGRICULTURAL LAND africame.factsanddetails.com
Websites on Mesopotamia: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Mesopotamia sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; International Association for Assyriology iaassyriology.com ; Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, University of Chicago isac.uchicago.edu ; University of Chicago Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations nelc.uchicago.edu ; University of Pennsylvania Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations (NELC) nelc.sas.upenn.edu; Penn Museum Near East Section penn.museum; Ancient History Encyclopedia ancient.eu.com/Mesopotamia ; British Museum britishmuseum.org ; Louvre louvre.fr/en/explore ; Metropolitan Museum of Art metmuseum.org/toah ; Ancient Near Eastern Art Metropolitan Museum of Art metmuseum.org; Iraq Museum theiraqmuseum ABZU etana.org/abzubib; Archaeology Websites Archaeology News Report archaeologynewsreport.blogspot.com ; Anthropology.net anthropology.net : archaeologica.org archaeologica.org ; Archaeology in Europe archeurope.com ; Archaeology magazine archaeology.org ; HeritageDaily heritagedaily.com; Live Science livescience.com/
Crimes in Ancient Mesopotamia
According to one tablet from 1900 B.C., three men — Ku-Enlilia, the son of a barber, Enlilennam, son of an orchard keeper, and one Nanna-rig — murdered a priest at the behest of the priest's wife, who had been having an affair with one of the men. The king ordered a trial that was judged by an assembly of nine elders whose professions included birdcatcher and potter. The verdict and sentence: "Those three males and that woman should be killed."
Not long after shekels appeared as a means of exchange, kings began levying fines in shekels as a punishment. Around 2000 B.C., in the city of Eshnunna, a man who bit another man's nose was fined 60 shekels. A man who slapped another man in the face had to pay up 20 shekels.
The Babylonian described a sinner as "one who has eaten what is taboo to his god or goddess, who has 'no' for 'yes' or has said 'yes' for 'no,' who has pointed his finger (falsely accusing) a fellow man...caused evil to be spoken, has judged incorrectly, oppressed the weak, estranged a son from his father or a friend from a friend, who has nor freed the captive..." Sins could be absolved by a penitential psalm, prayer or lament or an expiatory sacrifice in which a "lamb is substitute for man." Demons were exorcized by a priest who transferred the demon to a wax or wooden figure that was thrown in a fire. [“World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder, Facts on File Publications, New York]
Aaron Skaist wrote in Encyclopaedia Judaica: Sexual offences, such as rape (only of women who are married or preempted for marriage ["engaged"] by payment of a bride-price), adultery, and incest, all involve the death penalty; for these latter are acts which in almost any civilized society would be treated as the gravest of offenses, warranting the summary death of the offender. In all the codes, including the Bible, the death penalty is most often meted out for sexual offenses. [Source: Aaron Skaist, Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2005, Encyclopedia.com]
Wherever the law corpora treat homicide and bodily injuries in any detail, it is evident that they distinguished between premeditated acts, non-intentional acts, accident, and negligence, the penalties increasing in direct proportion to the degree of guilt, with injuries or deaths which are the result of negligence regarded as more serious than accidental or even non-intentional acts. Homicide resulting from negligence such as faulty house-building that caused the death of an occupant, was treated as a serious offense, and could bring the death penalty to the builder or a member of his family. However, the owner of a dangerous animal such as a goring ox was subject only to pecuniary damages.
According to these criteria, sorcery is a criminal offense. It is already so treated in lh, which prescribes the penalty of death by drowning (i.e., through the river ordeal) and can be traced through lh, al, hl, and finally in biblical law. Blasphemy and sedition, and insurrection appear to constitute another group of offenses treated early as criminal, e.g., al 2 (blasphemy and sedition by a woman), and hl 2:173 (opposing the decision of the crown and the elders). The character of the offense in the example from hl is clearly indicated by the inclusion in the same paragraph of the case of the slave who rebels against his master. This, in turn, indicates that the offense of the wife in lh 143, for which she was to be cast into the water, involved some overt act of disloyalty to her husband in addition to profligacy, and from this it may be assumed a fortiori that similar acts of disloyalty or sedition against the crown or the religious order were dealt with in Babylonia with at least equal severity.
Legal Code of Hammurabi
The Babylonian king Hammurabi (1792-1750 B.C.) produced the Code of Hammurabi, the oldest surviving set of laws. Credited with originating the eye for an eye justice, it consisted of 282 case laws with legal procedures and penalties. Many of the laws had been around for a while. Hammurabi codified them into a fixed and standardized set of laws. He also instituted a highly developed administration that included courts and a system for the enforcement of laws.
Hammurabi bas-relief at the
U.S. House of Representatives The legal code of Hammurabi is listed on an 8-foot-high black diorite stele from the 18th century B.C. On the top of the stele Hammurabi is shown standing before Shamash, the god of justice, receiving the laws. The stele is believed to be one of many that were set up throughout the Babylonian domain to inform people of the law of the land. The Code of Hammurabi slab that exists today was moved to Susa in Iran in 1200 B.C. and discovered in 1901. It is currently at the Louvre.
Claude Hermann and Walter Johns wrote in the Encyclopedia Britannica: “ The Hammurabi Code “regulates the feudal position of certain classes. They held an estate from the king consisting of house, garden, field, stock and a salary, on condition of personal service on the king's errand. They could not delegate the service on pain of death. When ordered abroad they could nominate a son, if capable, to hold the benefice and carry on the duty. If there was no son capable, the state put in a locum tenens, but granted one-third to the wife to maintain herself and children. The benefice was inalienable, could not be sold, pledged, exchanged, sublet, devised or diminished. Other land was held of the state for rent. Ancestral estate was strictly tied to the family. If a holder would sell, the family had the right of redemption and there seems to have been no time-limit to its exercise.” [Source: Claude Hermann Walter Johns, Babylonian Law — The Code of Hammurabi. Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, 1910-1911 ]
The legal code of Hammurabi dealt with theft, marriage, debt, slavery, commerce. One of the central tenets of the laws was to protect the weak against the strong. The "an for an eye" saying reads: "If a man destroy the eye of another man, they shall destroy his eye...If a son strike his father, they shall cut of his fingers...if one break's a man's bone, they shall break his bone." It came from list of penalties for surgeons. If a surgeon caused someone to lose an eye through negligence the surgeon could lose his eyes.
There are records of divorce trials in Babylonian and Assyrian cuneiform libraries. Under the Code of Hammurabi a woman could get a divorce and keep her dowry, property and children and get child support if she could prove her husband "degraded" her.
See Separate Article: CODE OF HAMMURABI: HISTORY, CONTENT, ETHICS AND PUNISHMENT africame.factsanddetails.com ; HAMMURABI'S CODE OF LAWS ON CRIMES, FINES SOLDIERS AND LEGAL MATTERS africame.factsanddetails.com ; HAMMURABI'S CODE OF LAWS ON WOMEN, DIVORCE AND FAMILY AND PERSONAL MATTERS africame.factsanddetails.com ; HAMMURABI'S CODE OF LAWS ON SLAVES, JOBS AND BUSINESS africame.factsanddetails.com HAMMURABI'S CODE OF LAWS ON FARMING, HERDING AND AGRICULTURAL LAND africame.factsanddetails.com
Ethics in Mesopotamia
Morris Jastrow said: “Ethical idealism, by which is here meant a high sense of duty and a noble view of life, is possible only—so it would seem—under two conditions, either through a strong conviction that there is a compensation elsewhere for the wrongs, the injustice, and the suffering in this world, or through an equally strong conviction that the unknown goal toward which mankind is striving can be reached only by the moral growth and ultimate perfection of the human race— whatever the future may have in store. The ethics of the Babylonians and Assyrians did not look beyond this world, and their standards were adapted to present needs and not to future possibilities. The thought of the gloomy Aralu in store for all coloured their view of life,—not indeed in leading them to take a pessimistic attitude towards life, or in regarding this world as a vale of tears, but in limiting their ethical ideals to what was essential to their material well-being and mundane happiness. [Source: Morris Jastrow, Lectures more than ten years after publishing his book “Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria” 1911 ]
“It would be an error, however, to infer that such a view of life is incompatible with relatively high standards of conduct. That is far from being the case—at least in Babylonia and Assyria. Even though the highest purpose in life was to secure as much joy and happiness as possible, the conviction was deeply ingrained, particularly in the minds of the Babylonians, that the gods demanded adherence to moral standards. We have had illustrations of these standards in the incantation texts, where by the side of ritualistic errors we find the priests suggesting the possibility that misfortune has been sent in consequence of moral transgressions—such as lying, stealing, defrauding, maliciousness, adultery, coveting the possessions of others, unworthy ambitions, injurious teachings, and other misdemeanours. The gods were prone to punish misdoings quite as severely as neglect of their worship, or indifference to the niceties of ritualistic observances.
“The consciousness of sinful inclinations and of guilt, though only brought home to men when misfortunes came or were impending, was strong enough to create rules of conduct in public and private affairs that rested on sound principles. The rights of individuals were safeguarded by laws that strove to prevent the strong from taking undue advantage of the weak. Business was carried on under the protection of laws and regulations that impress one as remarkably equitable. Underhand practices were severely punished, and contracts had to be faithfully executed. All this, it may be suggested, was dictated by the necessities of the growth of a complicated social organisation.”
Tribal Custom Versus State Laws in Babylon
Claude Hermann and Walter Johns wrote in the Encyclopedia Britannica: “When the Semitic tribes settled in the cities of Babylonia, their tribal custom passed over into city law. The early history of the country is the story of a struggle for supremacy between the cities. A metropolis demanded tribute and military support from its subject cities but left their local cults and customs unaffected. The city rights and usages were respected by kings and conquerors alike. [Source: Claude Hermann Walter Johns, Babylonian Law — The Code of Hammurabi. Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, 1910-1911 ]
“As late as the accession of Assur-bani-pal and Samas-sum-yukin we find the Babylonians appealing to their city laws that groups of aliens to the number of twenty at a time were free to enter the city, that foreign women once married to Babylonian husbands could not be enslaved and that not even a dog that entered the city could be put to death untried.
“The population of Babylonia was of many races from early times and intercommunication between the cities was incessant. Every city had a large number of resident aliens. This freedom of intercourse must have tended to assimilate custom. It was, however, reserved for the genius of Hammurabi to make Babylon his metropolis and weld together his vast empire by a uniform system of law.
“Almost all trace of tribal custom has already disappeared from the law of the Code Hammurabi. It is state-law; - alike self-help, blood-feud, marriage by capture, are absent; though family solidarity, district responsibility, ordeal, the lex talionis, are primitive features that remain. The king is a benevolent autocrat, easily accessible to all his subjects, both able and willing to protect the weak against the highest-placed oppressor. The royal power, however, can only pardon when private resentment is appeased. The judges are strictly supervised and appeal is allowed. The whole land is covered with feudal holdings, masters of the levy, police, etc. There is a regular postal system. The pax Babylonica is so assured that private individuals do not hesitate to ride in their carriage from Babylon to the coast of the Mediterranean. The position of women is free and dignified. The Code did not merely embody contemporary custom or conserve ancient law. It is true that centuries of law-abiding and litigious habitude had accumulated in the temple archives of each city vast stores of precedent in ancient deeds and the records of judicial decisions, and that intercourse had assimilated city custom.”
Contracts in Mesopotamia
Claude Hermann and Walter Johns wrote in the Encyclopedia Britannica: “The material for the study of Babylonian law is singularly extensive without being exhaustive. The so-called "contracts," including a great variety of deeds, conveyances, bonds, receipts, accounts and, most important of all, the actual legal decisions given by the judges in the law courts, exist in thousands. Historical inscriptions, royal charters and rescripts, despatches, private letters and the general literature afford welcome supplementary information. Even grammatical and lexicographical works, intended solely to facilitate the study of ancient literature, contain many extracts or short sentences bearing on law and custom.[Source: Claude Hermann Walter Johns, Babylonian Law — The Code of Hammurabi. Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, 1910-1911 ]
“The universal habit of writing and perpetual recourse to written contract even more modified primitive custom and ancient precedent. Provided the parties could agree, the Code left them free to contract as a rule. Their deed of agreement was drawn up in the temple by a notary public, and confirmed by an oath "by god and the king." It was publicly sealed and witnessed by professional witnesses, as well as by collaterally interested parties. The manner in which it was thus executed may have been sufficient security that its stipulations were not impious or illegal. Custom or public opinion doubtless secured that the parties would not agree to wrong.
“In case of dispute the judges dealt first with the contract. They might not sustain it, but if the parties did not dispute it, they were free to observe it. The judges' decision might, however, be appealed against. Many contracts contain the proviso that in case of future dispute the parties would abide by "the decision of the king." The Code made known, in a vast number of cases, what that decision would be, and many cases of appeal to the king were sent back to the judges with orders to decide in accordance with it. The Code itself was carefully and logically arranged and the order of its sections was conditioned by their subject-matter. Nevertheless the order is not that of modern scientific treatises, and a somewhat different order from both is most convenient for our purpose.”
Morris Jastrow said: “What is noticeable in the thousands of business documents now at our behoof and covering almost all periods from the earliest to the latest, is the spirit of justice and equity that pervades the endeavour to regulate the social relations in Babylonia and Assyria. This is particularly apparent in the legal decisions handed down by the judges, of which we have many specimens. [Source: Morris Jastrow, Lectures more than ten years after publishing his book “Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria” 1911 ]
“As a protection to both parties engaging in business transactions, a formal contract wherein the details were noted was drawn up, and sealed in the presence of witnesses. This method was extended from loans and sales to marriage agreements, to testaments, to contracts for work, to rents, and even to such incidents as engaging teachers, and to apprenticeship. The general principle, already implied in the Hammurabi Code, and apparently in force at all periods, was that no agreement of any kind was valid without a duly attested written record. The religious element enters into these business transactions in the oath taken in the name of the gods, with the frequent addition of the name of the reigning king by both parties as a guarantee of good faith. In some cases the oath is, in fact, prescribed by law. If a dispute arose in regard to the terms of a contract, and no agreement could be reached by the contracting parties, the case was brought before the court.”
How the Justice System Worked in Mesopotamia
In Mesopotamia there were legal codes but no lawyers. Parties involved in disputes had to plead their cases directly to government authorities, often people close to the king or the king himself. All legal decisions and agreements were ratified by an oath taken before the gods and subject to their wrath or punishment if the agreement was broken.
Morris Jastrow said: Courts appear “to have been ordinarily composed of three judges, as among the Jews (whose method of legal procedure was largely modelled upon Babylonian prototypes). All the documents in the case had to be brought into court, and each party was obliged to bring witnesses to support any claims lying outside the record. The impression that one receives from a study of these decisions is that they were rendered after a careful and impartial consideration of the documents, and of the statements of the parties and of previous decisions. [Source: Morris Jastrow, Lectures more than ten years after publishing his book “Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria” 1911]
Claude Hermann and Walter Johns wrote in the Encyclopedia Britannica: “In case of dispute the judges dealt first with the contract. They might not sustain it, but if the parties did not dispute it, they were free to observe it. The judges' decision might, however, be appealed against. Many contracts contain the proviso that in case of future dispute the parties would abide by "the decision of the king." The Hammurabi Code made known, in a vast number of cases, what that decision would be, and many cases of appeal to the king were sent back to the judges with orders to decide in accordance with it. The Code itself was carefully and logically arranged and the order of its sections was conditioned by their subject-matter. Nevertheless the order is not that of modern scientific treatises, and a somewhat different order from both is most convenient for our purpose. [Source: Claude Hermann Walter Johns, Babylonian Law — The Code of Hammurabi. Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, 1910-1911]
See Separate Article: HOW THE ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIAN JUSTICE SYSTEM WORKED africame.factsanddetails.com
Punishments in Mesopotamia and an Eye-for-an-Eye Justice
Hammurabi justice could be quite cruel. One law stated: “If a fire has broken out in a man’s house and a man who has gone to extinguish it has coveted an article of the owner of the house and takes the article of the house, that man shall be cast in that fire.” Hammurabi instituted the death penalty for illegal timber harvesting after wood became in such short supply that people took their doors with them when they moved. The shortages degraded agriculture land and cut production of chariots and naval ships.
Claude Hermann and Walter Johns wrote in the Encyclopedia Britannica:“In the criminal law the ruling principle was the lex talionis. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, limb for limb was the penalty for assault upon an amelu. A sort of symbolic retaliation was the punishment of the offending member, seen in the cutting off the hand that struck a father or stole a trust; in cutting off the breast of a wet-nurse who substituted a changeling for the child entrusted to her; in the loss of the tongue that denied father or mother (in the Elamite contracts the same penalty was inflicted for perjury); in the loss of the eye that pried into forbidden secrets. The loss of the surgeon's hand that caused loss of life or limb or the brander's hand that obliterated a slave's identification mark, are very similar. The slave, who struck a freeman or denied his master, lost an ear, the organ of hearing and symbol of obedience. To bring another into danger of death by false accusation was punished by death. To cause loss of liberty or property by false witness was punished by the penalty the perjurer sought to bring upon another. [Source: Claude Hermann Walter Johns, Babylonian Law — The Code of Hammurabi. Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, 1910-1911 ]
The law which pronounced sentence of death by drowning upon the unfaithful wife was observed as late as the age of Hammurabi. Such at least is the evidence of some curious documents, from which we learn that a certain Arad-Samas married first a daughter of Uttatu and subsequently a half-sister of his wife. In the contract of marriage it is stipulated that unfaithfulness to the husband on the part of both the wives would be punished with drowning, [Source: “Babylonians And Assyrians: Life And Customs”, Rev. A. H. Sayce, Professor of Assyriology at Oxford, 1900]
Fines and Exile in Ancient Mesopotamia
Not long after shekels appeared as a means of exchange, kings began levying fines in shekels as a punishment. Around 2000 B.C., in the city of Eshnunna, a man who bit another man's nose was fined 60 shekels. A man who slapped another man in the face had to pay up 20 shekels.
Hermann and Johns wrote: “The commonest of all penalties was a fine. This is awarded by the Code for corporal injuries to a muskinu or slave (paid to his master); for damages done to property, for breach of contract. The restoration of goods appropriated, illegally bought or damaged by neglect, was usually accompanied by a fine, giving it the form of multiple restoration. This might be double, treble, fourfold, fivefold, sixfold, tenfold, twelvefold, even thirtyfold, according to the enormity of the offence.
“Exile was inflicted for incest with a daughter; disinheritance for incest with a stepmother or for repeated unfilial conduct. Sixty strokes of an ox-hide scourge were awarded for a brutal assault on a superior, both being amelu. Branding (perhaps the equivalent of degradation to slavery) was the penalty for slander of a married woman or vestal. Deprivation of office in perpetuity fell upon the corrupt judge. Enslavement befell the extravagant wife and unfilial children. Imprisonment was common, but is not recognized by the Code.”
Death Penalty in the Hammurabi Code
Claude Hermann and Walter Johns wrote in the Encyclopedia Britannica:“The death penalty was freely awarded for theft and other crimes regarded as coming under that head, for theft involving entrance of palace or temple treasury, for illegal purchase from minor or slave, for selling stolen goods or receiving the same, for common theft in the open (in default of multiple restoration) or receiving the same, for false claim to goods, for kidnapping, for assisting or harbouring fugitive slaves, for detaining or appropriating same, for brigandage, for fraudulent sale of drink, for disorderly conduct of tavern, for delegation of personal service, for misappropriating the levy, for oppression of feudal holders, for causing death of a householder by bad building. [Source: Claude Hermann Walter Johns, Babylonian Law — The Code of Hammurabi. Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, 1910-1911 ]
“The manner of death is not specified in these cases. This death penalty was also fixed for such conduct as placed another in danger of death. A specified form of death penalty occurs in the following cases:-gibbeting (on the spot where crime was committed) for burglary, later also for encroaching on the king's highway, for getting a slave-brand obliterated, for procuring husband's death; burning for incest with own mother, for vestal entering or opening tavern, for theft at fire (on the spot); drowning for adultery, rape of betrothed maiden, bigamy, bad conduct as wife, seduction of daughter-in-law.
“A curious extension of the talio is the death of creditor's son for his father's having caused the death of debtor's son as mancipium; of builder's son for his father's causing the death of house-owner's son by building the house badly; the death of a man's daughter because her father caused the death of another man's daughter.
“The contracts naturally do not concern such criminal cases as the above, as a rule, but marriage contracts do specify death by strangling, drowning, precipitation from a tower or pinnacle of the temple or by the iron sword for a wife's repudiation of her husband. We are quite without evidence as to the executive in all these cases.”
Hammurabi's Code of Laws: 195-214: Eye-for-an-Eye Justice and Fines
195) If a son strike his father, his hands shall be hewn off. [Source: Translated by L. W. King]
196) If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out. [ An eye for an eye ]
197) If he break another man's bone, his bone shall be broken.
198) If he put out the eye of a freed man, or break the bone of a freed man, he shall pay one gold mina.
199) If he put out the eye of a man's slave, or break the bone of a man's slave, he shall pay one-half of its value.
200) If a man knock out the teeth of his equal, his teeth shall be knocked out. [ A tooth for a tooth ]
201) If he knock out the teeth of a freed man, he shall pay one-third of a gold mina.
202) If any one strike the body of a man higher in rank than he, he shall receive sixty blows with an ox-whip in public.
203) If a free-born man strike the body of another free-born man or equal rank, he shall pay one gold mina.
204) If a freed man strike the body of another freed man, he shall pay ten shekels in money.
205) If the slave of a freed man strike the body of a freed man, his ear shall be cut off.
206) If during a quarrel one man strike another and wound him, then he shall swear, "I did not injure him wittingly," and pay the physicians.
207) If the man die of his wound, he shall swear similarly, and if he (the deceased) was a free-born man, he shall pay half a mina in money.
208) If he was a freed man, he shall pay one-third of a mina.
209) If a man strike a free-born woman so that she lose her unborn child, he shall pay ten shekels for her loss.
210) If the woman die, his daughter shall be put to death.
211) If a woman of the free class lose her child by a blow, he shall pay five shekels in money.
212) If this woman die, he shall pay half a mina.
213) If he strike the maid-servant of a man, and she lose her child, he shall pay two shekels in money.
214) If this maid-servant die, he shall pay one-third of a mina.
Mesopotamia Law Compared to Biblical Law: The Case of the Goring Ox
Jacob Finkelstein wrote in Encyclopaedia Judaica: The codes of Mesopotamia are essentially secular codes in that they treat only matters concerning the conduct of one human being towards another. The relationship between the human and the divine is not regulated, nor are religious sanctions used to back up the essentially secular laws. [Source: Jacob Finkelstein, Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2005, Encyclopedia.com]
The Laws of Eshnunna paragraph 54 reads: "If an ox is known to gore habitually and the ward authorities have had the fact made known to its owner, but he does not have his ox dehorned [?] it gores a man and causes [his] death, then the owner of the ox shall pay two-thirds of a mina of silver" The code of Hammurapi paragraph 251 reads, "If a man's ox is a gorer and his ward authorities had informed him that it is a gorer but he did not cover its horns or tie up his ox and that ox gores a free man and causes his death he shall pay one half mina of silver."
A parallel law is to be found in Exodus 21:29: "If, however, that ox has been in the habit of goring, and its owner, though warned, has failed to guard it, and it kills a man or a woman — the ox shall be stoned and its owner, too, shall be put to death." Mesopotamian law, apart from the monetary penalty that the owner must pay, contains no penalty provision as far as the ox is concerned. Hebrew law requires that the owner of the ox be executed (according to Ex. 21:30 he can redeem himself), and that the ox likewise be executed.
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons
Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Mesopotamia sourcebooks.fordham.edu , National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, especially Merle Severy, National Geographic, May 1991 and Marion Steinmann, Smithsonian, December 1988, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Discover magazine, Times of London, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, BBC, Encyclopædia Britannica, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Time, Newsweek, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “History of Warfare” by John Keegan (Vintage Books); “History of Art” by H.W. Janson Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.
Last updated July 2024