Transcribed from the 1903 T. & T. Clark edition by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
THE OLDEST CODE OF LAWS IN THE WORLD
THE CODE OF LAWS PROMULGATED BY HAMMURABI, KING OF BABYLON
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
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 IMPRESSION... _March_ 1903.
THIRD IMPRESSION... _May_ 1903.
FOURTH IMPRESSION... _June_ 1903.
"The discovery and decipherment of this Code is the greatest event in Biblical Archaeology for many a day. A translation of the Code, done by Mr. Johns of Queens' College, Cambridge, the highest living authority on this department of study, has just been published by Messrs. T. & T.
Clark in a cheap and attractive booklet. Winckler says it is the most important Babylonian record which has thus far been brought to light."--_The Expository Times_.
INTRODUCTION
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 …