The Code of Hammurabi is a
well preserved Babylonian law code, dating to ca. 1780 BC (short
chronology).
Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central southern Mesopotamia (present day Iraq),
with Babylon as its capital.
It
is one of the oldest deciphered writings of significant length in the world.
The sixth Babylonian king, Hammurabi, enacted the code, and partial copies
exist on a human-sized stone stele (slab having height more than its
width) and various clay tablets.
The Code is inscribed in the Akkadian
language(now extinct; name of the language is derived from the city of Akkad,
a major center of Mesopotamian civilization), using cuneiform script carved
into the stele.
(Cuneiform script is one
of the earliest known forms of written expression. Cuneiform documents
were written on clay tablets, by means of a blunt reed (a type
of grass) for a stylus (writing utensil). The impressions left by the
stylus were wedge shaped, thus giving rise to the name cuneiform ["wedge
shaped", from the Latin cuneus, meaning "wedge]).
(Photo on right: Hammurabi Code on clay tablet)
One nearly complete example of the Code
survives today, on a diorite (a type of igneous rock- grey to dark grey in
colour) stele in the shape of a huge index finger, 7.4 ft
tall. (Photo on left: Hammurabi Code on diorite stele: Artist: Georgezhao;
licensed under the Creative CommonsAttribution-Share
Alike 3.0 Unported license)
The Code consists of 282 laws
Nearly one-half of the Code deals with
matters of contract, establishing for example the wages to be paid to an ox
driver or a surgeon.
Other provisions set the terms of a
transaction, establishing the liability of a builder for a house that
collapses, for example, or property that is damaged while left in the care of
another.
A third of the code addresses issues
concerning household and family relationships such as inheritance, divorce,
paternity and sexual behavior.
Only one provision appears to impose obligations
on an official; this provision establishes that a judge who reaches an
incorrect decision is to be fined and removed from the bench permanently. A
handful of provisions address issues related to military service.
Laws specifically relevant to civil
engineers (builders) were:-
228. If a builder has built a house for a
man, and finished it, he shall pay him a fee of two shekels of silver, for
each SAR built on.
229. If a builder has built a house for a
man, and has not made his work sound, and the house he built has fallen, and
caused the death of its owner, that builder shall be put to death.
230. If it is the owner's son that is
killed, the builder's son shall be put to death.
231. If it is the slave of the owner that
is killed, the builder shall give slave for slave to the owner of the
house.
232. If he has caused the loss of goods, he
shall render back whatever he has destroyed. Moreover, because he did not make
sound the house he built, and it fell, at his own cost he shall rebuild the
house that fell.
233. If a builder has built a house for a
man, and has not keyed his work, and the wall has fallen, that builder shall
make that wall firm at his own expense.
The Hammurabi code was based on principle
of lex talionis (a latin word meaning
"The law of retaliation often called "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a
tooth" ).
At the root of this principle is that one of the purposes of the law is
to provide equitable retribution for an offended party.
r center of Mesopotamian civilization)
s today, on a diorite 
