Babylon was an ancient city located on the lower Euphrates river in southern Mesopotamia , within modern-day Hillah , Iraq , about 85 kilometres (55 miles) south of modern day Baghdad . Babylon functioned as the main cultural and political centre of the Akkadian-speaking region of Babylonia . Its rulers established two important empires in antiquity, the 19th–16th century BC Old Babylonian Empire , and the 7th–6th century BC Neo-Babylonian Empire . Babylon was also used as a regional capital of other empires, such as the Achaemenid Empire . Babylon was one of the most important urban centres of the ancient Near East , until its decline during the Hellenistic period . Nearby ancient sites are Kish , Borsippa , Dilbat , and Kutha .
177-571: The Code of Hammurabi is a Babylonian legal text composed during 1755–1750 BC. It is the longest, best-organized, and best-preserved legal text from the ancient Near East . It is written in the Old Babylonian dialect of Akkadian , purportedly by Hammurabi , sixth king of the First Dynasty of Babylon . The primary copy of the text is inscribed on a basalt stele 2.25 m (7 ft 4 + 1 ⁄ 2 in) tall. The stele
354-479: A muškēnum than an awīlum : a muškēnum 's life may have been cheaper, but so were some of his fines. There was also inequality within these classes: laws 200 and 202, for example, show that one awīlum could be of higher rank than another. Martha Roth has shown that ideas of shame and honour motivated certain laws. The above principles are distant in spirit from modern systems of common and civil law , but some may be more familiar. One such principle
531-691: A lingua franca of the empire, rather than it being eclipsed by Akkadian. Texts written 'exclusively' in Neo-Assyrian disappear within 10 years of Nineveh 's destruction in 612 BC. Under the Achaemenids , Aramaic continued to prosper, but Assyrian continued its decline. The language's final demise came about during the Hellenistic period when it was further marginalized by Koine Greek , even though Neo-Assyrian cuneiform remained in use in literary tradition well into Parthian times. Similarly,
708-650: A voiced alveolar trill /r/ but its pattern of alternation with ⟨ ḫ ⟩ suggests it was a fricative (either uvular /ʁ/ or velar /ɣ/ ). In the Hellenistic period, Akkadian ⟨ r ⟩ was transcribed using the Greek ρ, indicating it was pronounced similarly as an alveolar sound (though Greeks may also have perceived a uvular trill as ρ). Several Proto-Semitic phonemes are lost in Akkadian. The Proto-Semitic glottal stop *ʔ , as well as
885-695: A better understanding of that era. The early Persian kings had attempted to maintain the religious ceremonies of Marduk , who was the most important god, but by the reign of Darius III , over-taxation and the strain of numerous wars led to a deterioration of Babylon's main shrines and canals, and the destabilization of the surrounding region. There were numerous attempts at rebellion and in 522 BC ( Nebuchadnezzar III ), 521 BC ( Nebuchadnezzar IV ) and 482 BC (Bel-shimani and Shamash-eriba) native Babylonian kings briefly regained independence. However, these revolts were quickly repressed and Babylon remained under Persian rule for two centuries, until Alexander
1062-495: A chieftain named Sumu-abum , who declared independence from the neighboring city-state of Kazallu . Sumu-la-El , whose dates may be concurrent with those of Sumu-abum, is usually given as the progenitor of the First Babylonian dynasty . Both are credited with building the walls of Babylon. In any case, the records describe Sumu-la-El's military successes establishing a regional sphere of influence for Babylon. Babylon
1239-517: A comparison with other Semitic languages, and the resulting picture was gradually amended using internal linguistic evidence from Akkadian sources, especially deriving from so-called plene spellings (spellings with an extra vowel). According to this widely accepted system, the place of stress in Akkadian is completely predictable and sensitive to syllable weight . There are three syllable weights: light (ending in -V); heavy (ending in -V̄ or -VC), and superheavy (ending in -V̂, -V̄C or -V̂C). If
1416-599: A consistent underlying legal system. As with the Code of Hammurabi, however, it is difficult to interpret the purpose and underlying legal systems of these earlier collections, prompting numerous scholars to question whether this should be attempted. Extant collections include: There are additionally thousands of documents from the practice of law, from before and during the Old Babylonian period. These documents include contracts, judicial rulings, letters on legal cases, and reform documents such as that of Urukagina , king of Lagash in
1593-444: A goat come next. Wolfram von Soden , who decades earlier called this way of thinking Listenwissenschaft ("list science"), often denigrated it. However, more recent writers, such as Marc Van De Mieroop, Jean Bottéro, and Ann Guinan, have either avoided value judgments or expressed admiration. Lists were central to Mesopotamian science and logic, and their distinctive structural principles let entries be generated infinitely. Linking
1770-515: A highly organised code similar to the Code of Justinian and the Napoleonic Code . There is also evidence that dīnātum , which in the Code of Hammurabi sometimes denote individual "laws", were enforced. One copy of the Code calls it a ṣimdat šarrim , "royal decree", which denotes a kind of enforced legislation. However, the arguments against this view are strong. Firstly, it would make
1947-474: A hope that "any wronged man who has a lawsuit" ( awīlum ḫablum ša awātam iraššû ) may have the laws of the stele read aloud to him and know his rights (3240'–3256'). This would bring Hammurabi praise (3257'–3275') and divine favour (3276'–3295'). Hammurabi wishes for good fortune for any ruler who heeds his pronouncements and respects his stele (3296'–3359'). However, he invokes the wrath of the gods on any man who disobeys or erases his pronouncements (3360'–3641',
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#17327655195762124-513: A hypothetical conditional. The durative , sometimes called the "present" in Assyriology, may express intention in the laws. For ease of English reading, some translations give preterite and perfect verbs in the protasis a present sense. In the apodosis, the verbs are in the durative, though the sense varies between permissive—"it is permitted that x happen"—and instructive—" x must/will happen". In both protasis and apodosis, sequence of action
2301-544: A large quantity of cuneiform tablets and other finds. The zealous excavation methods, common at the time, caused significant damage to the archaeological context. Many tablets had appeared on the market in 1876 before Rassam's excavation began. A team from the German Oriental Society led by Robert Koldewey conducted the first scientific archaeological excavations at Babylon. The work was conducted daily from 1899 until 1917. A major problem for Koldewey
2478-468: A locative ending in -um in the singular and the resulting forms serve as adverbials . These forms are generally not productive, but in the Neo-Babylonian the um -locative replaces several constructions with the preposition ina . In the later stages of Akkadian, the mimation (word-final -m ) and nunation (dual final -n ) that occurred at the end of most case endings disappeared, except in
2655-476: A map of Babylon which includes the location of several villages. William Loftus visited there in 1849. Austen Henry Layard made some soundings during a brief visit in 1850 before abandoning the site. Fulgence Fresnel , Julius Oppert and Felix Thomas heavily excavated Babylon from 1852 to 1854. Much of their work was lost in the Qurnah Disaster , when a transport ship and four rafts sank on
2832-607: A number of mounds, the most prominent of which are Kasr, Merkes (13 meters; 43' above the plain), Homera, Ishin-Aswad, Sahn, Amran, and Babil. It is roughly bisected by the Shatt Al-Hillah, a branch of the Euphrates river , which has shifted slightly since ancient times. The local water table has risen, making excavation of lower levels difficult. Prior to the heavy use of baked bricks in the reign of Neo-Babylonian ruler Nebuchadnezzar II (605–562 BC), construction at Babylon
3009-489: A reference to Homer . Following the pronouncement of Archibald Henry Sayce in 1883, Herodotus' account of Babylon has largely been considered to represent Greek folklore rather than an authentic voyage to Babylon. However, recently, Dalley and others have suggested taking Herodotus' account seriously. According to 2 Chronicles 36 of the Hebrew Bible , Cyrus later issued a decree permitting captive people, including
3186-733: A relief portrait of Hammurabi alongside those of other historic lawgivers. There are replicas of the stele in numerous institutions, including the headquarters of the United Nations in New York City and the Pergamon Museum in Berlin . Hammurabi (or Hammurapi), the sixth king of the Amorite First Dynasty of Babylon , ruled from 1792 to 1750 BC ( middle chronology ). He secured Babylonian dominance over
3363-600: A result, Kassite Babylon began paying tribute to the Pharaoh of Egypt , Thutmose III , following his eighth campaign against Mitanni. Kassite Babylon eventually became subject to the Middle Assyrian Empire (1365–1053 BC) to the north, and Elam to the east, with both powers vying for control of the city. By 1155 BC, after continued attacks and annexing of territory by the Assyrians and Elamites,
3540-609: A review of the stratigraphical position of the main monuments and reconsideration of ancient water levels, by the Turin Centre for Archaeological Research and Excavations in the Middle East and Asia, and the Iraqi-Italian Institute of Archaeological Sciences. The focus was on clearing up issues raised by re-examination of the old German data. Additional work in 1987–1989 concentrated on the area surrounding
3717-444: A seated Shamash. Shamash wears the horned crown of divinity and has a solar attribute, flames, spouting from his shoulders. Contrastingly, Scheil, in his editio princeps , identified the seated figure as Hammurabi and the standing figure as Shamash. Scheil also held that the scene showed Shamash dictating to Hammurabi while Hammurabi held a scribe's stylus , gazing attentively at the god. Martha Roth lists other interpretations: "that
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#17327655195763894-403: A separate East Semitic language. Because Akkadian as a spoken language is extinct and no contemporary descriptions of the pronunciation are known, little can be said with certainty about the phonetics and phonology of Akkadian. Some conclusions can be made, however, due to the relationship to the other Semitic languages and variant spellings of Akkadian words. The following table presents
4071-420: A sequence. Van De Mieroop provides the following examples: If a physician performs major surgery with a bronze lancet upon an [ awīlum ] and thus heals the [ awīlum ], or opens an [ awīlum ]'s temple with a bronze lancet and thus heals the [ awīlum ]'s eye, he shall take ten shekels of silver (as his fee). If a physician performs major surgery with a bronze lancet upon an [ awīlum ] and thus causes
4248-511: A short period after the Assyrian sack of Babylon. From the accounts of modern travellers, I had expected to have found on the site of Babylon more, and less, than I actually did. Less, because I could have formed no conception of the prodigious extent of the whole ruins, or of the size, solidity, and perfect state, of some of the parts of them; and more, because I thought that I should have distinguished some traces, however imperfect, of many of
4425-635: A small independent city-state with the rise of the first Babylonian Empire, now known as the Old Babylonian Empire , in the 17th century BC. The Amorite king Hammurabi founded the short-lived Old Babylonian Empire in the 16th century BC. He built Babylon into a major city and declared himself its king. Southern Mesopotamia became known as Babylonia , and Babylon eclipsed Nippur as the region's holy city. The empire waned under Hammurabi's son Samsu-iluna , and Babylon spent long periods under Assyrian , Kassite and Elamite domination. After
4602-401: A tooth for a tooth when one man destroys another's. Punishments determined by lex talionis could be transferred to the sons of the wrongdoer. For example, law 229 states that the death of a homeowner in a house collapse necessitates the death of the house's builder. The following law 230 states that if the homeowner's son died, the builder's son must die also. Persons were not equal before
4779-557: A variety of gods individually to turn their particular attributes against the defacer. For example: "may the [storm] god Adad ... deprive him of the benefits of rain from heaven and flood from the springs" (3509'–3515': adad... zunnī ina šamê mīlam ina nagbim līṭeršu ); "may the god [of wisdom] Ea ... deprive him of all understanding and wisdom, and may he lead him into confusion" (3440'–3451': ea... uznam u nēmeqam līṭeršu-ma ina mīšītim littarrūšu ). Gods and goddesses are invoked in this order: The Code of Hammurabi
4956-469: A vast succession of mounds of rubbish of such indeterminate figures, variety and extent, as to involve the person who should have formed any theory in inextricable confusion. Claudius J. Rich , Memoir on the Ruins of Babylon (1815), pp. 1–2. The site covers an area of about 1,000 hectares (3¾ sq. mi.), with about 450 hectares (1¾ sq. mi.) within the several kilometer (mile) long city walls, containing
5133-555: A vast textual tradition of religious and mythological narrative, legal texts, scientific works, personal correspondence, political, civil and military events, economic tracts and many other examples. Centuries after the fall of the Akkadian Empire, Akkadian, in its Assyrian and Babylonian varieties, was the native language of the Mesopotamian empires ( Old Assyrian Empire , Babylonia , Middle Assyrian Empire ) throughout
5310-481: A very unusual code—Reuven Yaron called the designation "Code" a "persistent misnomer". Vital areas of society and commerce are omitted. For example, Marc Van De Mieroop observes that the Code "deals with cattle and agricultural fields, but it almost entirely ignores the work of shepherds, vital to Babylonia's economy". Then, against the legislation theory more generally, highly implausible circumstances are covered, such as threshing with goats, animals far too unruly for
5487-499: A written language, adapting Sumerian cuneiform orthography for the purpose. During the Middle Bronze Age (Old Assyrian and Old Babylonian period), the language virtually displaced Sumerian, which is assumed to have been extinct as a living language by the 18th century BC. Old Akkadian, which was used until the end of the 3rd millennium BC, differed from both Babylonian and Assyrian, and was displaced by these dialects. By
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5664-609: Is PaRiStum (< *PaRiS-at-um ). Additionally there is a general tendency of syncope of short vowels in the later stages of Akkadian. Most roots of the Akkadian language consist of three consonants, called the radicals, but some roots are composed of four consonants, so-called quadriradicals. The radicals are occasionally represented in transcription in upper-case letters, for example PRS (to decide). Between and around these radicals various infixes , suffixes and prefixes , having word generating or grammatical functions, are inserted. The resulting consonant-vowel pattern differentiates
5841-484: Is broad, including, for example, criminal law , family law , property law , and commercial law . Modern scholars responded to the Code with admiration at its perceived fairness and respect for the rule of law , and at the complexity of Old Babylonian society. There was also much discussion of its influence on the Mosaic Law . Scholars quickly identified lex talionis —the "eye for an eye" principle—underlying
6018-444: Is conveyed by suffixing verbs with -ma , "and". -ma can also have the sense "but". The Code is relatively well-understood, but some items of its vocabulary are controversial. As mentioned, the terms awīlum and muškēnum have proved difficult to translate. They probably denote respectively a male member of a higher and lower social class. Wolfram von Soden, in his Akkadisches Handwörterbuch , proposed that muškēnum
6195-442: Is divided into several varieties based on geography and historical period : One of the earliest known Akkadian inscriptions was found on a bowl at Ur , addressed to the very early pre-Sargonic king Meskiagnunna of Ur ( c. 2485 –2450 BC) by his queen Gan-saman, who is thought to have been from Akkad. The Akkadian Empire , established by Sargon of Akkad , introduced the Akkadian language (the "language of Akkad ") as
6372-428: Is either a soldier or [an auxiliary] who is taken captive in a royal fortress, and his son is able to perform the service obligation, the field and orchard shall be given to him, and he shall perform his father's service obligation. If his son is young and is unable to perform his father's service obligation, one third of the field and orchard shall be given to his mother, and his mother shall raise him. Here, following
6549-463: Is marked by the Kassite invasion of Babylonia around 1550 BC. The Kassites, who reigned for 300 years, gave up their own language in favor of Akkadian, but they had little influence on the language. At its apogee, Middle Babylonian was the written language of diplomacy of the entire Ancient Near East , including Egypt ( Amarna Period ). During this period, a large number of loan words were included in
6726-526: Is perhaps justified by Hammurabi's interest in his subjects' affairs. His affinities with many different gods are stressed throughout. He is portrayed as dutiful in restoring and maintaining temples and peerless on the battlefield. The list of his accomplishments has helped establish that the text was written late in Hammurabi's reign. After the list, Hammurabi explains that he fulfilled Marduk's request to establish "truth and justice" ( kittam u mīšaram ) for
6903-507: Is preserved on clay tablets dating back to c. 2500 BC . It was written using cuneiform , a script adopted from the Sumerians using wedge-shaped symbols pressed in wet clay. As employed by Akkadian scribes, the adapted cuneiform script could represent either (a) Sumerian logograms ( i.e. , picture-based characters representing entire words), (b) Sumerian syllables, (c) Akkadian syllables, or (d) phonetic complements . In Akkadian
7080-449: Is short: "I am Hammurabi, the shepherd, selected by the god Enlil" ( ḫammurabi rē'ûm nibīt enlil anāku ). Then Hammurabi continues for over 200 lines in a single nominal sentence with the anāku delayed to the very end (291). Hammurabi repeatedly calls himself na'dum , "pious" (lines 61, 149, 241, and 272). The metaphor of Hammurabi as his people's shepherd also recurs. It was a common metaphor for ancient Near Eastern kings, but
7257-449: Is that the Code is not a true code but an abstract treatise on how judgments should be formulated. This led Fritz Rudolf Kraus, in an early formulation of the theory, to call it jurisprudence ( Rechtssprüche ). Kraus proposed that it was a work of Mesopotamian scholarship in the same category as omen collections like šumma ālu and ana ittišu . Others have provided their own versions of this theory. A. Leo Oppenheim remarked that
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7434-468: Is the presumption of innocence ; the first two laws of the stele prescribe punishments, determined by lex talionis , for unsubstantiated accusations. Written evidence was valued highly, especially in matters of contract . One crime was given only one punishment. The laws also recognized the importance of the intentions of a defendant. Lastly, the Code's establishment on public stelae was supposedly intended to increase access to justice. Whether or not this
7611-509: Is the Latin representation of Greek Babylṓn ( Βαβυλών ), derived from the native ( Babylonian ) Bābilim , meaning "gate of the god(s) ". The cuneiform spelling was 𒆍𒀭𒊏𒆠 ( KÁ.DIG̃IR.RA ). This would correspond to the Sumerian phrase Kan dig̃irak . The sign 𒆍 ( KÁ ) is the logogram for "gate", 𒀭 ( DIG̃IR ) means "god", and 𒊏 ( RA ) represents
7788-453: Is the longest and best-organised legal text from the ancient Near East, as well as the best-preserved. The classification below (columns 1–3) is Driver & Miles', with several amendments, and Roth's translation is used. Laws represented by letters are those reconstructed primarily from documents other than the Louvre stele. The purpose and legal authority of the Code have been disputed since
7965-501: Is then [awat+su] > /awatt͡su/ . In this vein, an alternative transcription of ⟨ š ⟩ is ⟨ s̱ ⟩, with the macron below indicating a soft (lenis) articulation in Semitic transcription. Other interpretations are possible. /ʃ/ could have been assimilated to the preceding /t/ , yielding /ts/ , which would later have been simplified to /ss/ . The rhotic ⟨ r ⟩ has traditionally been interpreted as
8142-457: The Code of Hammurabi . He conquered all of the cities and city states of southern Mesopotamia, including Isin , Larsa , Ur , Uruk , Nippur , Lagash , Eridu , Kish , Adab , Eshnunna , Akshak , Shuruppak , Bad-tibira , Sippar , and Girsu , coalescing them into one kingdom, ruled from Babylon. Hammurabi also invaded and conquered Elam to the east, and the kingdoms of Mari and Ebla to
8319-546: The Bible , descriptions in other classical writing, especially by Herodotus , and second-hand descriptions citing the work of Ctesias and Berossus —present an incomplete and sometimes contradictory picture of the ancient city, even at its peak in the sixth century BC. Babylon was described, perhaps even visited, by a number of classical historians including Ctesias , Herodotus , Quintus Curtius Rufus , Strabo , and Cleitarchus . These reports are of variable accuracy and some of
8496-492: The Code of Ur-Nammu , when Hammurabi produced his own Code. This suggests that earlier collections may have not only resembled the Code but influenced it. Raymond Westbrook maintained that there was a fairly consistent tradition of "ancient Near Eastern law" which included the Code of Hammurabi, and that this was largely customary law . Nonetheless, there are differences: for example, Stephen Bertman has suggested that where earlier collections are concerned with compensating victims,
8673-828: The Ishtar Gate and hundreds of recovered tablets, were sent back to Germany, where Koldewey's colleague Walter Andrae reconstructed them into displays at the Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin . The Koldewey expedition recovered artifacts from the Old Babylonian period . These included 967 clay tablets, with 564 tablets from the Middle Babylonian period , stored in private houses, with Sumerian literature and lexical documents. The German archaeologists fled before oncoming British troops in 1917, and again, many objects went missing in
8850-527: The Jews , to return to their own lands. The text found on the Cyrus Cylinder has traditionally been seen by biblical scholars as corroborative evidence of this policy, although the interpretation is disputed because the text identifies only Mesopotamian sanctuaries but makes no mention of Jews, Jerusalem, or Judea. Under Cyrus and the subsequent Persian king Darius I , Babylon became the capital city of
9027-669: The Louvre , in Room 227 of the Richelieu wing. At the top is an image of Hammurabi with Shamash , the Babylonian sun god and god of justice. Below the image are about 4,130 lines of cuneiform text: One fifth contain a prologue and epilogue, while the remaining four fifths contain what are generally called the laws. Near the bottom, seven columns of the laws, each with more than eighty lines, were polished and erased in antiquity. The stele
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#17327655195769204-623: The Mesopotamian plain through military prowess, diplomacy, and treachery. When Hammurabi inherited his father Sin-Muballit 's throne, Babylon held little local sway; the local hegemon was Rim-Sin of Larsa . Hammurabi waited until Rim-Sin grew old, then conquered his territory in one swift campaign, leaving his organisation intact. Later, Hammurabi betrayed allies in Eshnunna , Elam , and Mari to gain their territories. Hammurabi had an aggressive foreign policy, but his letters suggest he
9381-542: The Northwest Semitic languages and South Semitic languages in its subject–object–verb word order, while the other Semitic languages usually have either a verb–subject–object or subject–verb–object order. Additionally Akkadian is the only Semitic language to use the prepositions ina and ana ( locative case , English in / on / with , and dative -locative case, for / to , respectively). Other Semitic languages like Arabic , Hebrew and Aramaic have
9558-402: The Old Babylonian period . The following table shows Proto-Semitic phonemes and their correspondences among Akkadian, Modern Standard Arabic and Tiberian Hebrew : The existence of a back mid-vowel /o/ has been proposed, but the cuneiform writing gives no good proof for this. There is limited contrast between different u-signs in lexical texts, but this scribal differentiation may reflect
9735-595: The Persian conquest of the Mesopotamian kingdoms contributed to the decline of Babylonian, from that point on known as Late Babylonian, as a popular language. However, the language was still used in its written form. Even after the Greek invasion under Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC, Akkadian was still a contender as a written language, but spoken Akkadian was likely extinct by this time, or at least rarely used. The last positively identified Akkadian text comes from
9912-708: The Tigris river in May 1855. They had been carrying over 200 crates of artifacts from various excavation missions, when they were attacked by Tigris river pirates near Al-Qurnah . Recovery efforts, assisted by the Ottoman authorities and British Residence in Baghdad, loaded the equivalent of 80 crates on a ship for Le Havre in May 1856. Few antiquities from the Fresnel mission made it to France. Subsequent efforts to recover
10089-511: The coda of the word dig̃ir (-r) followed by the genitive suffix -ak . The final 𒆠 ( ) is a determinative indicating that the previous signs are to be understood as a place name. Archibald Sayce , writing in the 1870s, postulated that the Semitic name was a loan-translation of the original Sumerian name. However, the "gate of god" interpretation is increasingly viewed as a Semitic folk etymology to explain an unknown original non-Semitic placename. I. J. Gelb in 1955 argued that
10266-598: The consonants of the Akkadian language, as distinguished in Akkadian cuneiform. The reconstructed phonetic value of a phoneme is given in IPA transcription, alongside its standard ( DMG-Umschrift ) transliteration in angle brackets ⟨ ⟩ . Evidence from borrowings from and to Sumerian has been interpreted as indicating that the Akkadian voiceless non-emphatic stops were originally unaspirated, but became aspirated around 2000 BCE. Akkadian emphatic consonants are typically reconstructed as ejectives , which are thought to be
10443-677: The short chronology , had built Babylon "in front of Akkad" (ABC 19:51). A later chronicle states that Sargon "dug up the dirt of the pit of Babylon, and made a counterpart of Babylon next to Akkad". (ABC 20:18–19). Van de Mieroop has suggested that those sources may refer to the much later Assyrian king Sargon II of the Neo-Assyrian Empire , rather than Sargon of Akkad. Ctesias , quoted by Diodorus Siculus and in George Syncellus 's Chronographia , claimed to have access to manuscripts from Babylonian archives, which date
10620-400: The status absolutus (the absolute state ) and the status constructus ( construct state ). The latter is found in all other Semitic languages, while the former appears only in Akkadian and some dialects of Aramaic. The status absolutus is characterised by the loss of a noun's case ending (e.g. awīl < awīlum , šar < šarrum ). It is relatively uncommon, and is used chiefly to mark
10797-470: The 10th century BC when the Assyrian kingdom became a major power with the Neo-Assyrian Empire . During the existence of that empire, however, Neo-Assyrian began to turn into a chancellery language, being marginalized by Old Aramaic . The dominance of the Neo-Assyrian Empire under Tiglath-Pileser III over Aram-Damascus in the middle of the 8th century led to the establishment of Aramaic as
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#173276551957610974-561: The 1st century AD. The latest known text in cuneiform Babylonian is an astronomical almanac dated to 79/80 AD. However, the latest cuneiform texts are almost entirely written in Sumerian logograms. The Akkadian language began to be rediscovered when Carsten Niebuhr in 1767 was able to make extensive copies of cuneiform texts and published them in Denmark. The deciphering of the texts started immediately, and bilinguals, in particular Old Persian -Akkadian bilinguals, were of great help. Since
11151-460: The 21st century BC Babylonian and Assyrian, which were to become the primary dialects, were easily distinguishable. Old Babylonian, along with the closely related dialect Mariotic , is clearly more innovative than the Old Assyrian dialect and the more distantly related Eblaite language . For this reason, forms like lu-prus ('I will decide') were first encountered in Old Babylonian instead of
11328-555: The 25th century BC, texts fully written in Akkadian begin to appear. By the 20th century BC, two variant dialectic forms of the same language were in use in Assyria and Babylonia, known as Assyrian and Babylonian respectively. The bulk of preserved material is from this later period, corresponding to the Near Eastern Iron Age . In total, hundreds of thousands of texts and text fragments have been excavated, covering
11505-549: The 8th century BC. Akkadian, which is the earliest documented Semitic language , is named after the city of Akkad , a major centre of Mesopotamian civilization during the Akkadian Empire ( c. 2334 –2154 BC). It was written using the cuneiform script , originally used for Sumerian , but also used to write multiple languages in the region including Eblaite , Hurrian , Elamite , Old Persian and Hittite . The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian went beyond just
11682-539: The 9th Satrapy (Babylonia in the south and Athura in the north), as well as a center of learning and scientific advancement. In Achaemenid Persia, the ancient Babylonian arts of astronomy and mathematics were revitalized, and Babylonian scholars completed maps of constellations. The city became the administrative capital of the Persian Empire and remained prominent for over two centuries. Many important archaeological discoveries have been made that can provide
11859-659: The Assyrians destroyed and then rebuilt it, Babylon became the capital of the short-lived Neo-Babylonian Empire , from 626 to 539 BC. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were ranked as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World , allegedly existing between approximately 600 BC and AD 1. However, there are questions about whether the Hanging Gardens of Babylon even existed, as there is no mention within any extant Babylonian texts of its existence. After
12036-780: The Assyrians, in which ethnic groups in conquered areas were deported en masse to the capital. According to the Hebrew Bible, he destroyed Solomon's Temple and exiled the Jews to Babylon. The defeat was also recorded in the Babylonian Chronicles . In 539 BC, the Neo-Babylonian Empire fell to Cyrus the Great , king of Persia , with a military engagement known as the Battle of Opis . Babylon's walls were considered impenetrable. The only way into
12213-461: The Babylonian sky god and king of the gods , granted rulership over humanity to Marduk . Marduk chose the centre of his earthly power to be Babylon, which in the real world worshipped him as its tutelary god . Marduk established the office of kingship within Babylon. Finally, Anum, along with the Babylonian wind god Enlil , chose Hammurabi to be Babylon's king. Hammurabi was to rule "to prevent
12390-682: The Code evinced. Several singled out perceived secularism : Owen Jenkins, for example, but even Charles Souvay for the Catholic Encyclopedia , who opined that unlike the Mosaic Law the Code was "founded upon the dictates of reason". The question of the Code's influence on the Mosaic Law received much early attention. Scholars also identified Hammurabi with the Biblical figure Amraphel , but this proposal has since been abandoned. The relief appears to show Hammurabi standing before
12567-430: The Code is concerned with physically punishing offenders. Additionally, the above conclusions of similarity and influence apply only to the law collections themselves. The actual legal practices from the context of each code are mysterious. Babylon The earliest known mention of Babylon as a small town appears on a clay tablet from the reign of Shar-Kali-Sharri (2217–2193 BC), of the Akkadian Empire . Babylon
12744-400: The Code of Hammurabi and similar Mesopotamian law collections "represent an interesting formulation of social criticism and should not be taken as normative directions". This interpretation bypasses the problem of low congruence between the Code and actual legal judgments. Secondly, the Code does bear striking similarities to other works of Mesopotamian scholarship. Key points of similarity are
12921-469: The Code of Lipit-Ishtar in 1947, the Laws of Eshnunna in 1948, and the Code of Ur-Nammu in 1952. Early commentators dated Hammurabi and the stele to the 23rd century BC. However, this is an earlier estimate than even the " ultra-long chronology " would support. The Code was compiled near the end of Hammurabi's reign. This was deduced partly from the list of his achievements in the prologue. Scheil enthused about
13098-413: The Code or any other law collection, despite the great scale of the corpus. Two references to prescriptions on "a stele" ( narû ) come closest. In contrast, numerous judgments cite royal mīšarum -decrees. Raymond Westbrook held that this strengthened the argument from silence that ancient Near Eastern legal "codes" had legal import. Furthermore, many Old Babylonian judgments run entirely counter to
13275-430: The Code suggests about Old Babylonian society and its legal system. For example, whether it demonstrates that there were no professional advocates, or that there were professional judges. Scholars who approach the Code as a self-contained document renounce such claims. One principle widely accepted to underlie the Code is lex talionis , or "eye for an eye". Laws 196 and 200 respectively prescribe an eye for an eye and
13452-407: The Code to the scribal tradition within which "list science" emerged also explains why trainee scribes copied and studied it for over a millennium. The Code appears in a late Babylonian (7th–6th century BC) list of literary and scholarly texts. No other law collection became so entrenched in the curriculum. Rather than a code of laws, then, it may be a scholarly treatise. Much has been written on what
13629-401: The Code's prescriptions. A second theory is that the Code is a sort of law report, and as such contains records of past cases and judgments, albeit phrased abstractly. This would provide one explanation for the casuistic format of the "laws"; indeed, Jean Bottéro believed he had found a record of a case that inspired one. However, such finds are inconclusive and very rare, despite the scale of
13806-480: The Great 's entry in 331 BC. Akkadian language Akkadian ( / ə ˈ k eɪ d i ən / ə- KAY -dee-ən ; Akkadian: 𒀝𒅗𒁺𒌑(𒌝) , romanized: Akkadû(m) ) is an extinct East Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia ( Akkad , Assyria , Isin , Larsa , Babylonia and perhaps Dilmun ) from the third millennium BC until its gradual replacement in common use by Old Aramaic among Assyrians and Babylonians from
13983-558: The Iraqi State Organization for Antiquities and Heritage conducted extensive research, excavation and clearing, but wider publication of these archaeological activities has been limited. Most of the known tablets from all modern excavations remain unpublished. The main sources of information about Babylon—excavation of the site itself, references in cuneiform texts found elsewhere in Mesopotamia, references in
14160-641: The Ishara and Ninurta temples in the Shu-Anna city-quarter of Babylon. A number of Iraqi excavations have occurred at Babylon, the earliest in 1938. From 1979–1981 excavation and restoration work was conducted at the Ninmah Temple, Istar Temple, and the Southern Palace. Occasional excavations and restorations continued in the 1970s and 1980s. During the restoration efforts in Babylon,
14337-744: The Kassites were deposed in Babylon. An Akkadian south Mesopotamian dynasty then ruled for the first time. However, Babylon remained weak and subject to domination by Assyria. Its ineffectual native kings were unable to prevent new waves of foreign West Semitic settlers from the deserts of the Levant, including the Arameans and Suteans in the 11th century BC, and finally the Chaldeans in the 9th century BC, entering and appropriating areas of Babylonia for themselves. The Arameans briefly ruled in Babylon during
14514-569: The Late 2nd Millennium BC and was in widespread usage in the 1st Millennium BC. The spelling E.KI also appears in the 1st Millennium BC. In the Hebrew Bible , the name appears as Babel ( Hebrew : בָּבֶל Bavel , Tib. בָּבֶל Bāḇel ; Classical Syriac : ܒܒܠ Bāwēl , Imperial Aramaic : בבל Bāḇel; in Arabic : بَابِل Bābil ), interpreted in the Book of Genesis to mean " confusion ", from
14691-438: The Mesopotamian legal corpus. Furthermore, legal judgments were frequently recorded in Mesopotamia, and they recount the facts of the case without generalising them. These judgments were concerned almost exclusively with points of fact, prompting Martha Roth to comment: "I know of only one case out of thousands extant that might be said to revolve around a point of law". A third theory, which has gained traction within Assyriology,
14868-555: The Semitic name into Sumerian would have taken place at the time of the "Neo-Sumerian" Third Dynasty of Ur . ( Bab- Il ). A fragmentary inscription dating to the Early Dynastic Period , likely in the Akkadian language, refers to an unknown lord who was the governor (ENSI) of BAR.KI.BAR and constructed the temple for Marduk , indicating that the city could very well be Babylon. During the ED III period, sign placement
15045-578: The [ awīlum ]'s death, or opens an [ awīlum ]'s temple with a bronze lancet and thus blinds the [ awīlum ]'s eye, they shall cut off his hand. Laws 215 and 218 illustrate the principle of opposition: one variable of the first law, the outcome of the operations, is altered to create the second. If there is either a soldier or [an auxiliary] who is taken captive while serving in a royal fortress [...] if he should [...] return and get back to his city, they shall return to him his field and orchard and he himself shall perform his service obligation. If there
15222-545: The allied Medo-Babylonian armies destroyed the Assyrian Empire between 626 BC and 609 BC. Babylon thus became the capital of the Neo-Babylonian (sometimes called the Chaldean) Empire. With the recovery of Babylonian independence, a new era of architectural activity ensued, particularly during the reign of his son Nebuchadnezzar II (604–561 BC). Nebuchadnezzar ordered the complete reconstruction of
15399-404: The archaeological evidence is typical of Anatolia rather than of Assyria, but the use both of cuneiform and the dialect is the best indication of Assyrian presence. Old Babylonian was the language of king Hammurabi and his code , which is one of the oldest collections of laws in the world. (see Code of Ur-Nammu .) Old Assyrian developed as well during the second millennium BC, but because it
15576-505: The aristocracy"; others have left it untranslated. Certain legal terms have also proved difficult to translate. For example, dīnum and dīttum can denote the law in general as well as individual laws, verdicts, divine pronouncements and other phenomena. mīšarum can likewise denote the law in general as well as a kind of royal decree. The Code of Hammurabi bears strong similarities to earlier Mesopotamian law collections. Many purport to have been written by rulers, and this tradition
15753-471: The case detailed in the protasis ("if" clause ) and the remedy given in the apodosis ("then" clause). The protasis begins šumma , "if", except when it adds to circumstances already specified in a previous law (e.g. laws 36, 38, and 40). The preterite is used for simple past verbs in the protasis, or possibly for a simple conditional. The perfect often appears at the end of the protasis after one or more preterites to convey sequence of action, or possibly
15930-611: The city of Babylon can be found in Akkadian and Sumerian literature from the late third millennium BC. One of the earliest is a tablet describing the Akkadian king Šar-kali-šarri laying the foundations in Babylon of new temples for Annūnı̄tum and Ilaba . Babylon also appears in the administrative records of the Third Dynasty of Ur , which collected in-kind tax payments and appointed an ensi as local governor. The so-called Weidner Chronicle (also known as ABC 19 ) states that Sargon of Akkad , c. 23rd century BC in
16107-505: The city was through one of its many gates, or through the Euphrates River. Metal grates were installed underwater, allowing the river to flow through the city walls while preventing intrusion. The Persians devised a plan to enter the city via the river. During a Babylonian national feast, Cyrus' troops upstream diverted the Euphrates River, allowing Cyrus' soldiers to enter the city through the lowered water. The Persian army conquered
16284-419: The content was politically motivated, but these still provide useful information. Historical knowledge of early Babylon must be pieced together from epigraphic remains found elsewhere, such as at Uruk , Nippur , Sippar , Mari , and Haradum . The earliest known mention of Babylon as a small town appears on a clay tablet from the reign of Shar-Kali-Sharri (2217–2193 BC) of the Akkadian Empire. References to
16461-685: The cuneiform script; owing to their close proximity, a lengthy span of contact and the prestige held by the former, Sumerian significantly impacted Akkadian phonology, vocabulary and syntax. This mutual influence of Akkadian and Sumerian has also led scholars to describe the languages as a Sprachbund . Akkadian proper names are first attested in Sumerian texts in the mid-3rd millennium BC, and inscriptions ostensibly written in Sumerian but whose character order reveals that they were intended to be read in East Semitic (presumably early Akkadian) date back to as early as c. 2600 BC . From about
16638-493: The curses are very vivid: "may the god Sin ... decree for him a life that is no better than death" (3486'–3508': sîn... balāṭam ša itti mūtim šitannu ana šīmtim lišīmšum ); "may he [the future defacer] conclude every day, month, and year of his reign with groaning and mourning" (3497'–3501': ūmī warḫī šanāt palēšu ina tānēḫim u dimmatim lišaqti ); may he experience "the spilling of his life force like water" (3435'–3436': tabāk napištišu kīma mê ). Hammurabi implores
16815-402: The development of Assyriological science since the days of Rawlinson and Layard ". Charles Francis Horne commended the "wise law-giver" and his "celebrated code". James Henry Breasted noted the Code's "justice to the widow, the orphan, and the poor", but remarked that it "also allows many of the old and naïve ideas of justice to stand". Commentators praised the advanced society they believed
16992-485: The dialects of Akkadian identified with certainty so far. Some researchers (such as W. Sommerfeld 2003) believe that the Old Akkadian variant used in the older texts is not an ancestor of the later Assyrian and Babylonian dialects, but rather a separate dialect that was replaced by these two dialects and which died out early. Eblaite , formerly thought of as yet another Akkadian dialect, is now generally considered
17169-401: The earlier stages of the language, the dual number is vestigial, and its use is largely confined to natural pairs (eyes, ears, etc.). Adjectives are never found in the dual. In the dual and plural, the accusative and genitive are merged into a single oblique case . Akkadian, unlike Arabic , has only "sound" plurals formed by means of a plural ending. Broken plurals are not formed by changing
17346-428: The end of the text). The epilogue contains much legal imagery, and the phrase "to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak" (3202'–3203': dannum enšam ana lā ḫabālim ) is reused from the prologue. However, the king's main concern appears to be ensuring that his achievements are not forgotten and his name not sullied. The list of curses heaped upon any future defacer is 281 lines long and extremely forceful. Some of
17523-521: The fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, the city came under the rule of the Achaemenid , Seleucid , Parthian , Roman , Sassanid , and Muslim empires. The last known habitation of the town dates from the 11th century, when it was referred to as the "small village of Babel". It has been estimated that Babylon was the largest city in the world c. 1770 – c. 1670 BC , and again c. 612 – c. 320 BC . It
17700-420: The first one bears stress. A rule of Akkadian phonology is that certain short (and probably unstressed) vowels are dropped. The rule is that the last vowel of a succession of syllables that end in a short vowel is dropped, for example the declinational root of the verbal adjective of a root PRS is PaRiS- . Thus the masculine singular nominative is PaRS-um (< *PaRiS-um ) but the feminine singular nominative
17877-528: The folk etymology was already widely known in the Sargonic period . However, the original form of the name (Babbar/Babbir) was not forgotten, as seen from the phonetic spelling ba-ab-bí-lum in the Ur III period , and the spellings Pambalu and Babalu in the Kassite period . Another attested spelling for the city of Babylon is TIN.TIR.KI, attested sparsely in the Old Babylonian period but grew in popularity in
18054-513: The following years. Further work by the German Archaeological Institute was conducted by Heinrich J. Lenzen in 1956 and Hansjörg Schmid in 1962, working the Hellenistic, Parthian, Sasanian, and Arabic levels of the site. Lenzen's work dealt primarily with the Hellenistic theatre, and Schmid focused on the temple ziggurat Etemenanki . A topographical survey at the site was conducted in 1974, followed in 1977 by
18231-426: The founding of Babylon to 2286 BC, under the reign of its first king, Belus . A similar figure is found in the writings of Berossus , who, according to Pliny, stated that astronomical observations commenced at Babylon 490 years before the Greek era of Phoroneus , indicating 2243 BC. Stephanus of Byzantium wrote that Babylon was built 1002 years before the date given by Hellanicus of Lesbos for
18408-540: The fricatives *ʕ , *h , *ḥ are lost as consonants, either by sound change or orthographically, but they gave rise to the vowel quality e not exhibited in Proto-Semitic. The voiceless lateral fricatives ( *ś , *ṣ́ ) merged with the sibilants as in Canaanite , leaving 19 consonantal phonemes. Old Akkadian preserved the /*ś/ phoneme longest but it eventually merged with /*š/ , beginning in
18585-521: The gardens actually existed is a matter of dispute. German archaeologist Robert Koldewey speculated that he had discovered its foundations, but many historians disagree about the location. Stephanie Dalley has argued that the hanging gardens were actually located near the Assyrian capital, Nineveh . Nebuchadnezzar is also notoriously associated with the Babylonian exile of the Jews, the result of an imperial technique of pacification, used also by
18762-626: The imperial grounds, including the Etemenanki ziggurat , and the construction of the Ishtar Gate —the most prominent of eight gates around Babylon. A reconstruction of the Ishtar Gate is located in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin . Nebuchadnezzar is also credited with the construction of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon , one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World , said to have been built for his homesick wife, Amytis . Whether
18939-479: The king is offering the laws to the god; that the king is accepting or offering the emblems of sovereignty of the rod and ring; or—most probably—that these emblems are the measuring tools of the rod-measure and rope-measure used in temple-building". Hammurabi may even be imitating Shamash. It is certain, though, that the draughtsman showed Hammurabi's close links to the divine realm, using composition and iconography. The prologue and epilogue together occupy one-fifth of
19116-599: The language from Northwest Semitic languages and Hurrian . However, the use of these words was confined to the fringes of the Akkadian-speaking territory. From 1500 BC onwards, the Assyrian language is termed Middle Assyrian. It was the language of the Middle Assyrian Empire . However, the Babylonian cultural influence was strong and the Assyrians wrote royal inscriptions, religious and most scholarly texts in Middle Babylonian, whereas Middle Assyrian
19293-454: The last syllable is superheavy, it is stressed, otherwise the rightmost heavy non-final syllable is stressed. If a word contains only light syllables, the first syllable is stressed. It has also been argued that monosyllabic words generally are not stressed but rather function as clitics . The special behaviour of /V̂/ syllables is explained by their functioning, in accordance with their historical origin, as sequences of two syllables, of which
19470-520: The late 11th century BC. During the rule of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–609 BC), Babylonia was under constant Assyrian domination or direct control. During the reign of Sennacherib of Assyria, Babylonia was in a constant state of revolt, led by a chieftain named Merodach-Baladan , in alliance with the Elamites , and suppressed only by the complete destruction of the city of Babylon. In 689 BC, its walls, temples and palaces were razed, and
19647-591: The later Bronze Age, and became the lingua franca of much of the Ancient Near East by the time of the Bronze Age collapse c. 1150 BC . However, its gradual decline began in the Iron Age, during the Neo-Assyrian Empire when in the mid-eighth century BC Tiglath-Pileser III introduced Imperial Aramaic as a lingua franca of the Assyrian empire. By the Hellenistic period , the language
19824-404: The latter being used for long vowels arising from the contraction of vowels in hiatus. The distinction between long and short is phonemic , and is used in the grammar; for example, iprusu ('that he decided') versus iprusū ('they decided'). There is broad agreement among most Assyriologists about Akkadian stress patterns. The rules of Akkadian stress were originally reconstructed by means of
20001-561: The law ; not just age and profession but also class and gender dictated the punishment or remedy they received. Three main kinds of person, awīlum , muškēnum , and wardum (male)/ amtum (female), are mentioned throughout the Code. A wardum / amtum was a male/female slave. As for awīlum and muškēnum , though contentious, it seems likely that the difference was one of social class, with awīlum meaning something like "gentleman" and muškēnum something like "commoner". The penalties were not necessarily stricter for
20178-511: The list format and the order of the items, which Ann Guinan describes as a complex "serial logic". Marc Van De Mieroop explains that, in common with other works of Mesopotamian scholarship such as omen lists, king lists, and god lists, the entries of the Code of Hammurabi are arranged according to two principles. These are "opposition"—whereby a variable in one entry is altered to make another entry—and "pointillism"—whereby new conditions are added to an entry, or paradigmatic series pursued, to generate
20355-434: The locative. Later, the nominative and accusative singular of masculine nouns collapsed to -u and in Neo-Babylonian most word-final short vowels were dropped. As a result, case differentiation disappeared from all forms except masculine plural nouns. However, many texts continued the practice of writing the case endings, although often sporadically and incorrectly. As the most important contact language throughout this period
20532-556: The lost antiquities from the Tigris, including a Japanese expedition in 1971–72, have been largely unsuccessful. Henry Rawlinson and George Smith worked there briefly in 1854. The next excavation was conducted by Hormuzd Rassam on behalf of the British Museum . Work began in 1879, continuing until 1882, and was prompted by widespread looting of the site. Using industrial scale digging in search of artifacts, Rassam recovered
20709-437: The mid-20th century. Theories fall into three main categories: that it is legislation , whether a code of law or a body of statutes ; that it is a sort of law report , containing records of past cases and judgments; and that it is an abstract work of jurisprudence . The jurisprudence theory has gained much support within Assyriology. The term "code" presupposes that the document was intended to be enforced as legislation. It
20886-460: The mid-3rd millennium BC, whose reforms combatted corruption. Mesopotamia has the most comprehensive surviving legal corpus from before the Digest of Justinian , even compared to those from ancient Greece and Rome . The first copy of the text found, and still the most complete, is on a 2.25 m (7 ft 4 + 1 ⁄ 2 in) stele . The stele is now displayed on the ground floor of
21063-529: The native Sealand Dynasty , and the Elamites appropriated territory in eastern Mesopotamia. The Amorite dynasty remained in power in Babylon, which again became a small city state. After the destruction of the city the Kassites rose to control the region. Texts from Old Babylon often include references to Shamash , the sun-god of Sippar, treated as a supreme deity, and Marduk , considered as his son. Marduk
21240-509: The northwest. After a conflict with the Old Assyrian period king Ishme-Dagan , he forced his successor to pay tribute late in his reign. After the reign of Hammurabi, the whole of southern Mesopotamia came to be known as Babylonia . From this time, Babylon supplanted Nippur and Eridu as the major religious centers of southern Mesopotamia. Hammurabi's empire destabilized after his death. The far south of Mesopotamia broke away, forming
21417-536: The older la-prus . While generally more archaic, Assyrian developed certain innovations as well, such as the "Assyrian vowel harmony ". Eblaite was even more so, retaining a productive dual and a relative pronoun declined in case, number and gender. Both of these had already disappeared in Old Akkadian. Over 20,000 cuneiform tablets in Old Assyrian have been recovered from the Kültepe site in Anatolia . Most of
21594-516: The oldest realization of emphatics across the Semitic languages. One piece of evidence for this is that Akkadian shows a development known as Geers's law , where one of two emphatic consonants dissimilates to the corresponding non-emphatic consonant. For the sibilants, traditionally ⟨ š ⟩ has been held to be postalveolar /ʃ/ , and ⟨ s ⟩, ⟨ z ⟩, ⟨ ṣ ⟩ analyzed as fricatives; but attested assimilations in Akkadian suggest otherwise. For example, when
21771-464: The original meaning of the root. The middle radical can be geminated, which is represented by a doubled consonant in transcription, and sometimes in the cuneiform writing itself. The consonants ʔ , w , j and n are termed "weak radicals" and roots containing these radicals give rise to irregular forms. Formally, Akkadian has three numbers (singular, dual and plural) and three cases ( nominative , accusative and genitive ). However, even in
21948-480: The original name was Babilla , of unknown meaning and origin, as there were other similarly named places in Sumer , and there are no other examples of Sumerian place-names being replaced with Akkadian translations. He deduced that it later transformed into Akkadian Bāb-ili(m) , and that the Sumerian name Kan-dig̃irak was a loan translation of the Semitic folk etymology, and not the original name. The re-translation of
22125-877: The other Semitic languages in the Near Eastern branch of the Afroasiatic languages , a family native to Middle East , Arabian Peninsula , parts of Anatolia , parts of the Horn of Africa , North Africa , Malta , Canary Islands and parts of West Africa ( Hausa ). Akkadian is only ever attested in Mesopotamia and neighboring regions in the Near East. Within the Near Eastern Semitic languages, Akkadian forms an East Semitic subgroup (with Eblaite and perhaps Dilmunite ). This group differs from
22302-643: The outlying areas of the city while the majority of Babylonians at the city center were unaware of the breach. The account was elaborated upon by Herodotus and is mentioned in parts of the Hebrew Bible. Herodotus also described a moat, an enormously tall and broad wall, cemented with bitumen and with buildings on top, and a hundred gates to the city. He writes that the Babylonians wear turbans and perfume and bury their dead in honey, that they practice ritual prostitution, and that three tribes among them eat nothing but fish . The hundred gates can be considered
22479-462: The people (292–302), although the prologue never directly references the laws. The prologue ends "at that time:" (303: inūmišu ) and the laws begin. Unlike the prologue, the 500-line epilogue is explicitly related to the laws. The epilogue begins (3144'–3151'): "these are the just decisions which Hammurabi ... has established" ( dīnāt mīšarim ša ḫammurabi... ukinnu-ma ). He exalts his laws and his magnanimity (3152'–3239'). He then expresses
22656-463: The possessive suffix -šu is added to the root awat ('word'), it is written awassu ('his word') even though šš would be expected. The most straightforward interpretation of this shift from tš to ss , is that ⟨ s, ṣ ⟩ form a pair of voiceless alveolar affricates /t͡s/ /t͡sʼ/ , ⟨ š ⟩ is a voiceless alveolar sibilant /s/ , and ⟨ z ⟩ is a voiced alveolar affricate or fricative /d͡z/~/z/ . The assimilation
22833-461: The prepositions bi/bə and li/lə (locative and dative, respectively). The origin of the Akkadian spatial prepositions is unknown. In contrast to most other Semitic languages, Akkadian has only one non-sibilant fricative : ḫ [x] . Akkadian lost both the glottal and pharyngeal fricatives, which are characteristic of the other Semitic languages. Until the Old Babylonian period, the Akkadian sibilants were exclusively affricated . Old Akkadian
23010-605: The prescriptions themselves bear "an astonishing absence ... of all theological or even ceremonial law". The laws are written in the Old Babylonian dialect of Akkadian. Their style is regular and repetitive, and today they are a standard set text for introductory Akkadian classes. However, as A. Leo Oppenheim summarises, the cuneiform signs themselves are "vertically arranged ... within boxes placed in bands side by side from right to left", an arrangement already antiquated by Hammurabi's time. The laws are expressed in casuistic format: they are conditional sentences with
23187-429: The principal structures of Babylon. I imagined, I should have said: "Here were the walls, and such must have been the extent of the area. There stood the palace, and this most assuredly was the tower of Belus." – I was completely deceived: instead of a few insulated mounds, I found the whole face of the country covered with vestiges of building, in some places consisting of brick walls surprisingly fresh, in others merely of
23364-465: The principle of pointillism, circumstances are added to the first entry to create more entries. Pointillism also lets list entries be generated by following paradigmatic series common to multiple branches of scholarship. It can thus explain the implausible entries. For example, in the case of the goat used for threshing (law 270), the previous laws concern other animals that were used for threshing. The established series of domesticated beasts dictated that
23541-412: The relief are about 4,130 lines of cuneiform text: one fifth contains a prologue and epilogue in poetic style, while the remaining four fifths contain what are generally called the laws. In the prologue, Hammurabi claims to have been granted his rule by the gods "to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak". The laws are casuistic , expressed as "if ... then" conditional sentences . Their scope
23718-640: The relief portion of the stele, especially the beards of Hammurabi and Shamash, was reworked at the same time. Roth suggests the stele was taken as plunder from Sippar, where Hammurabi lived towards the end of his reign. Fragments of a second and possibly third stele recording the Code were found along with the Louvre stele at Susa. Over fifty manuscripts containing the laws are known. They were found not only in Susa but also in Babylon, Nineveh , Assur , Borsippa , Nippur , Sippar , Ur, Larsa, and more. Copies were created during Hammurabi's reign, and also after it, since
23895-488: The rubble was thrown into the Arakhtu, the sea bordering the earlier Babylon on the south. The destruction of the religious center shocked many, and the subsequent murder of Sennacherib by two of his own sons while praying to the god Nisroch was considered an act of atonement. Consequently, his successor, Esarhaddon hastened to rebuild the old city and make it his residence for part of the year. After his death, Babylonia
24072-483: The same syllable in the same text. Cuneiform was in many ways unsuited to Akkadian: among its flaws was its inability to represent important phonemes in Semitic, including a glottal stop , pharyngeals , and emphatic consonants . In addition, cuneiform was a syllabary writing system—i.e., a consonant plus vowel comprised one writing unit—frequently inappropriate for a Semitic language made up of triconsonantal roots (i.e., three consonants plus any vowels). Akkadian
24249-404: The script practically became a fully fledged syllabic script , and the original logographic nature of cuneiform became secondary , though logograms for frequent words such as 'god' and 'temple' continued to be used. For this reason, the sign AN can on the one hand be a logogram for the word ilum ('god') and on the other signify the god Anu or even the syllable -an- . Additionally, this sign
24426-473: The siege of Troy (1229 BC), which would date Babylon's foundation to 2231 BC. All of these dates place Babylon's foundation in the 23rd century BC . However, cuneiform records have not been found to correspond with these classical, post-cuneiform accounts. The first attested mention of Babylon was in the late 3rd millennium BC during the Akkadian Empire reign of ruler Shar-Kali-Sharri one of whose year names mentions building two temples there. Babylon
24603-456: The southern Caucasus and by communities in the Assyrian diaspora . Akkadian is a fusional language with grammatical case . Like all Semitic languages, Akkadian uses the system of consonantal roots . The Kültepe texts , which were written in Old Assyrian , include Hittite loanwords and names, which constitute the oldest record of any Indo-European language . Akkadian belongs with
24780-455: The stele's fragments were found on the tell of the Susa acropolis ( l'Acropole de Suse ), between December 1901 and January 1902. The few, large fragments made assembly easy. Scheil hypothesised that the stele had been taken to Susa by the Elamite king Shutruk-Nakhunte and that he had commissioned the erasure of several columns of laws to write his legend there. It has been proposed that
24957-456: The stele's importance and perceived fairness, calling it "a moral and political masterpiece". C. H. W. Johns called it "one of the most important monuments in the history of the human race". He remarked that "there are many humanitarian clauses and much protection is given the weak and the helpless", and even lauded a "wonderful modernity of spirit". John Dyneley Prince called the Code's rediscovery "the most important event which has taken place in
25134-537: The strong from oppressing the weak" (37–39: dannum enšam ana lā ḫabālim ). He was to rise like Shamash over the Mesopotamians (the ṣalmāt qaqqadim , literally the "black-headed people") and illuminate the land (40–44). Hammurabi then lists his achievements and virtues (50–291). These are expressed in noun form, in the Akkadian first person singular nominal sentence construction "[noun] ... anāku " ("I am [noun]"). The first nominal sentence (50–53)
25311-407: The superimposition of the Sumerian phonological system (for which an /o/ phoneme has also been proposed), rather than a separate phoneme in Akkadian. All consonants and vowels appear in long and short forms. Long consonants are transliterated as double consonants, and inconsistently written as such in cuneiform. Long vowels are transliterated with a macron (ā, ē, ī, ū) or a circumflex (â, ê, î, û),
25488-463: The task (law 270). The laws are also strictly casuistic ("if ... then"); unlike in the Mosaic Law, there are no apodictic laws (general commands). These would more obviously suggest prescriptive legislation. The strongest argument against the legislation theory, however, is that most judges appear to have paid the Code no attention. This line of criticism originated with Benno Landsberger in 1950. No Mesopotamian legal document explicitly references
25665-405: The text became a part of the scribal curriculum. Copies have been found dating from one thousand years after the stele's creation, and a catalogue from the library of Neo-Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (685–631 BC) lists a copy of the "judgments of Hammurabi". The additional copies fill in most of the stele's original text, including much of the erased section. The editio princeps of the Code
25842-440: The text. Out of around 4,130 lines, the prologue occupies 300 lines and the epilogue occupies 500. They are in ring composition around the laws, though there is no visual break distinguishing them from the laws. Both are written in poetic style, and, as William W. Davies wrote, "contain much ... which sounds very like braggadocio". The 300-line prologue begins with an etiology of Hammurabi's royal authority (1–49). Anum ,
26019-591: The texts contained several royal names, isolated signs could be identified, and were presented in 1802 by Georg Friedrich Grotefend . By this time it was already evident that Akkadian was a Semitic language, and the final breakthrough in deciphering the language came from Edward Hincks , Henry Rawlinson and Jules Oppert in the middle of the 19th century. In the early 21st century it was shown that automatic high-quality translation of Akkadian can be achieved using natural language processing methods such as convolutional neural networks . The following table summarises
26196-465: The two collections. Debate among Assyriologists has since centred around several aspects of the Code: its purpose, its underlying principles, its language, and its relation to earlier and later law collections. Despite the uncertainty surrounding these issues, Hammurabi is regarded outside Assyriology as an important figure in the history of law and the document as a true legal code. The U.S. Capitol has
26373-455: The verb bilbél ( בלבל , "to confuse"). The modern English verb, to babble ("to speak foolish, excited, or confusing talk"), is popularly thought to derive from this name but there is no direct connection. In Pali and Sanskrit literature, the name appears as Bāveru . Ancient records in some situations use "Babylon" as a name for other cities, including cities like Borsippa within Babylon's sphere of influence, and Nineveh for
26550-434: The word stem. As in all Semitic languages, some masculine nouns take the prototypically feminine plural ending ( -āt ). The nouns šarrum (king) and šarratum (queen) and the adjective dannum (strong) will serve to illustrate the case system of Akkadian. As is clear from the above table, the adjective and noun endings differ only in the masculine plural. Certain nouns, primarily those referring to geography, can also form
26727-418: The work of Ctesias and Berossus —present an incomplete and sometimes contradictory picture of the ancient city, even at its peak in the sixth century BC. UNESCO inscribed Babylon as a World Heritage Site in 2019. The site receives thousands of visitors each year, almost all of whom are Iraqis. Construction is rapidly increasing, which has caused encroachments upon the ruins. The spelling Babylon
26904-476: Was Aramaic , which itself lacks case distinctions, it is possible that Akkadian's loss of cases was an areal as well as phonological phenomenon. As is also the case in other Semitic languages, Akkadian nouns may appear in a variety of "states" depending on their grammatical function in a sentence. The basic form of the noun is the status rectus (the governed state), which is the form as described above, complete with case endings. In addition to this, Akkadian has
27081-461: Was a purely popular language — kings wrote in Babylonian — few long texts are preserved. It was, however, notably used in the correspondence of Assyrian traders in Anatolia in the 20th-18th centuries BC and that even led to its temporary adoption as a diplomatic language by various local Anatolian polities during that time. The Middle Babylonian period started in the 16th century BC. The division
27258-420: Was besieged by the Assyrians, starved into surrender and its allies were defeated. Ashurbanipal celebrated a "service of reconciliation", but did not venture to "take the hands" of Bel . An Assyrian governor named Kandalanu was appointed as ruler of the city. Ashurbanipal did collect texts from Babylon for inclusion in his extensive library at Ninevah. Under Nabopolassar , Babylon escaped Assyrian rule, and
27435-406: Was concerned with the welfare of his many subjects and was interested in law and justice. He commissioned extensive construction works, and in his letters, he frequently presents himself as his people's shepherd. Justice is also a theme of the prologue to the Code, and "the word translated 'justice' [ ešērum ]... is one whose root runs through both prologue and epilogue". Although Hammurabi's Code
27612-505: Was derived from šukênum , "to bow down/supplicate". As a word for a man of low social standing, it has endured, possibly from a Sumerian root, into Arabic ( miskīn ), Italian ( meschino ), Spanish ( mezquino ), and French ( mesquin ). However, some earlier translators, also seeking to explain the muškēnum 's special treatment, translated it as "leper" and even "noble". Some translators have supplied stilted readings for awīlum , such as "seignior", "elite man", and "member of
27789-637: Was found at the site of the ancient Elamite city of Susa . Susa is in modern-day Khuzestan Province , Iran (Persia at the time of excavation). The stele was excavated by the French Archaeological Mission under the direction of Jacques de Morgan . Father Jean-Vincent Scheil published the initial report in the fourth volume of the Reports of the Delegation to Persia ( Mémoires de la Délégation en Perse ). According to Scheil,
27966-407: Was found in three large fragments and reconstructed. It is 225 cm (7 ft 4 + 1 ⁄ 2 in) high, with a circumference is 165 cm (5 ft 5 in) at the summit and 190 cm (6 ft 3 in) at the base. Hammurabi's image is 65 cm (2 ft 1 + 1 ⁄ 2 in) high and 60 cm (1 ft 11 + 1 ⁄ 2 in) wide. The Louvre stele
28143-557: Was governed by his elder son, the Assyrian prince Shamash-shum-ukin , who eventually started a civil war in 652 BC against his own brother, Ashurbanipal , who ruled in Nineveh . Shamash-shum-ukin enlisted the help of other peoples against Assyria, including Elam , Persia , the Chaldeans , and Suteans of southern Mesopotamia, and the Canaanites and Arabs dwelling in the deserts south of Mesopotamia . Once again, Babylon
28320-400: Was initially a minor city-state, and controlled little surrounding territory. Its first four Amorite rulers did not assume the title of king. The older and more powerful states of Elam , Isin , and Larsa overshadowed Babylon until it became the capital of Hammurabi 's short-lived empire about a century later. Hammurabi (r. 1792–1750 BC) is famous for codifying the laws of Babylonia into
28497-532: Was largely confined to scholars and priests working in temples in Assyria and Babylonia. The last known Akkadian cuneiform document dates from the 1st century AD. Mandaic spoken by Mandean Gnostics and the dialects spoken by the extant Assyrians ( Suret ) are three extant Neo-Aramaic languages that retain Akkadian vocabulary and grammatical features, as well as personal and family names. These are spoken by Assyrians and Mandeans mainly in northern Iraq , southeast Turkey , northeast Syria , northwest Iran ,
28674-487: Was later elevated to a higher status and Shamash lowered, perhaps reflecting Babylon's rising political power. In 1595 BC, the city was sacked by Mursili I , ruler of the Hittite Empire . Thereafter, the Kassite dynasty took power in the city of Babylon, renaming it Karduniash, ushering in a dynasty that lasted for 435 years, until 1160 BC. Babylon was weakened during the Kassite era, and as
28851-479: Was merely a religious and cultural centre at this point and neither an independent state nor a large city, subject to the Akkadian Empire. After the collapse of the Akkadian Empire, the south Mesopotamian region was dominated by the Gutian Dynasty for a few decades, before the rise of the Third Dynasty of Ur , which encompassed the whole of Mesopotamia, including the town of Babylon. The town became part of
29028-442: Was perhaps the first city to reach a population above 200,000. Estimates for the maximum extent of its area range from 890 (3½ sq. mi.) to 900 ha (2,200 acres). The main sources of information about Babylon—excavation of the site itself, references in cuneiform texts found elsewhere in Mesopotamia, references in the Bible , descriptions in other classical writing, especially by Herodotus , and second-hand descriptions, citing
29205-607: Was primarily of unbaked brick, with the occasional use of baked bricks or bitumen. Subsequent excavation, looting, and reconstruction have reduced these original heights found by the German excavators. Claudius Rich , working for the British East India Company in Baghdad, excavated Babylon in 1811–12 and again in 1817. Captain Robert Mignan explored the site briefly in 1827. In 1829, he completed
29382-509: Was probably widespread. Earlier law collections express their god-given legitimacy similarly. Like the Code of Hammurabi, they feature prologues and epilogues: the Code of Ur-Nammu has a prologue, the Code of Lipit-Ishtar a prologue and an epilogue, and the Laws of Eshnunna an epilogue. Also, like the Code of Hammurabi, they uphold the "one crime, one punishment" principle. The cases covered and language used are, overall, strikingly similar. Scribes were still copying earlier law collections, such as
29559-611: Was published by Father Jean-Vincent Scheil in 1902, in the fourth volume of the Reports of the Delegation to Persia ( Mémoires de la Délégation en Perse ). After a brief introduction with details of the excavation, Scheil gave a transliteration and a free translation into French, as well as a selection of images. Editions in other languages soon followed: in German by Hugo Winckler in 1902, in English by C. H. W. Johns in 1903, and in Italian by Pietro Bonfante, also in 1903. The Code
29736-467: Was rediscovered in 1901 at the site of Susa in present-day Iran, where it had been taken as plunder six hundred years after its creation. The text itself was copied and studied by Mesopotamian scribes for over a millennium. The stele now resides in the Louvre Museum . The top of the stele features an image in relief of Hammurabi with Shamash , the Babylonian sun god and god of justice. Below
29913-591: Was relatively fluid and so the KI sign could be seen as the determinative, with the name of the city as BAR.BAR, perhaps pronounced Babbar. Paul-Alain Beaulieu proposes that the original name could mean "shining" "glowing" or "white". It would be likely that it was later read as Babbir, and then Babbil by swapping the consonant r with l. The earliest unambiguous mention to the city Babylon came from one of Shar-Kali-Sharri's year names, spelled as KA.DINGIR.KI, indicating that
30090-460: Was ruled by ensi (governors) for the empire. Some of the known governors were Abba, Arši-aḫ, Itūr-ilum, Murteli, Unabatal, and Puzur-Tutu. After that nothing is heard of the city until the time of Sumu-la-El. After around 1950 BC Amorite kingdoms will appear in Uruk and Larsa in the south. According to a Babylonian king list, Amorite rule in Babylon began ( c. 19th or 18th century BC ) with
30267-482: Was the first Mesopotamian law collection to be discovered, it was not the first written; several earlier collections survive. These collections were written in Sumerian and Akkadian . They also purport to have been written by rulers. There were almost certainly more such collections, as statements of other rulers suggest the custom was widespread. The similarities between these law collections make it tempting to assume
30444-485: Was the large scale mining of baked bricks, which began in the 19th century and which were mainly sourced from the time of Nebuchadnezzar II. At the time, excavations for brick mining, for various building projects, including the Hindiya dam were under way. The primary efforts of the dig involved the temple of Marduk and the processional way leading up to it, as well as the city wall. Artifacts, including pieces of
30621-465: Was thought to be the earliest Mesopotamian law collection when it was rediscovered in 1902—for example, C. H. W. Johns' 1903 book was titled The Oldest Code of Laws in the World . The English writer H. G. Wells included Hammurabi in the first volume of The Outline of History , and to Wells too the Code was "the earliest known code of law". However, three earlier collections were rediscovered afterwards:
30798-493: Was true, suggesting that a wronged man have the stele read aloud to him (lines 3240'–3254') is a concrete measure in this direction, given the inaccessibility of scribal education in the Old Babylonian period. The prologue asserts that Hammurabi was chosen by the gods. Raymond Westbrook observed that in ancient Near Eastern law, "the king was the primary source of legislation". However, they could delegate their god-given legal authority to judges. However, as Owen B. Jenkins observed,
30975-441: Was used as a determinative for divine names. Another peculiarity of Akkadian cuneiform is that many signs do not have a well defined phonetic value. Certain signs, such as AḪ , do not distinguish between the different vowel qualities. Nor is there any coordination in the other direction; the syllable -ša- , for example, is rendered by the sign ŠA , but also by the sign NĪĜ . Both of these are often used for
31152-477: Was used by Scheil in his editio princeps , and widely adopted afterwards. C. H. W. Johns, one of the most prolific early commentators on the document, proclaimed that "the Code well deserves its name". Recent Assyriologists have used the term without comment, as well as scholars outside Assyriology. However, only if the text was intended as enforced legislation can it truly be called a code of law and its provisions laws. The document, on first inspection, resembles
31329-505: Was used mostly in letters and administrative documents. During the first millennium BC, Akkadian progressively lost its status as a lingua franca . In the beginning, from around 1000 BC, Akkadian and Aramaic were of equal status, as can be seen in the number of copied texts: clay tablets were written in Akkadian, while scribes writing on papyrus and leather used Aramaic. From this period on, one speaks of Neo-Babylonian and Neo-Assyrian . Neo-Assyrian received an upswing in popularity in
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