The Legacy of Mestoptamia

1. The Legacy of Mestoptamia Section 3 Pages 47-51

2. Hammurabi’s Code • Hammurabi ruled Babylon from about 1792 to 1750 B.C. • Code-an organized list of laws • 282 laws arranged in different categories • Trade, labor, property, family, adoption, practicing medicine, hiring wagons and boats and controlling of animals

3. “An Eye for an Eye” • The punishment should be similar to the crime that was committed • The laws did not apply equally to all people. Punishment depended on how important the victim was. The higher the class of the victim, the stiffer the penalty.

4. Hammurabi’s Code Continued… • “If a surgeon performed a major operation on a citizen and the citizen dies…his hand shall be cut off.” • These laws were the first attempts by a society to set up a code of laws.

5. These laws are important to us because they are the first set of laws that are written down ( Not actually the first set of laws) • Everyone could know the rules and punishments

6. The Art of Writing • Writing developed in Mesopotamia in 3100 B.C. • Scribes kept important records – sales trade, taxes, marriages, deaths • There were even Military scribes for the army

7. Millitary scribes kept records of army food supplies • Government scribes kept records of workers and diggers needed to build a canal • Clay tablets were written on with sharp tool called a stylus that kept track of these events • There was no paper

8. Tigris and Euphrates provided clay • Spring brought rivers to wash clay down from the mountains • The clay was shaped in tablets to write on • At first people drew pictures of objects - ex., grain water, stars

9. From Pictures to Writing • They used shaped pieces of clay as tokens to keep track of how many animals were sold or bought and how much food was grown • Scribes combined the symbols to make groups of wedges and lines known as Cuneiform.