Find two other passages that provide evidence of inequality in Hammurabi’s Code. (Be sure to cite the number of the code.)
i. Evidence 1:
ii. Evidence 2:
Document A: Hammurabi’s Code—Farming/Agriculture

The following selections from Hammurabi’s Code discuss the economy in Babylonia. As you read, pay attention to what was important to Babylonians as they tried to make a living.

42. If any one take over a field to till it, and obtain no harvest from it, it must be proved that he did no work on the field, and he must deliver grain, just as his neighbor raised, to the owner of the field.
43. If he do not till the field, but let it lie fallow, he shall give grain like his neighbor's to the owner of the field, and the field which he let lie fallow he must plow and sow and return to its owner.
53. If any one be too lazy to keep his dam in proper condition . . . if then the dam break and all the fields be flooded, then shall he in whose dam the break occurred be sold for money, and the money shall replace the corn which he has caused to be ruined.
54. If he be not able to replace the corn, then he and his possessions shall be divided among the farmers whose corn he has flooded.
59. If any man, without the knowledge of the owner of a garden, fell a tree in a garden he shall pay half a mina in money.
Source: “Code of Hammurabi,” 1780 BCE.
Vocabulary
till: farm, work
fallow: land with no seeds planted
fell: cause to fall

Document B: Hammurabi’s Code—Society
The following selections from Hammurabi’s Code discuss rules for Babylonian society. As you read, pay attention to how society was structured. Was everyone treated equally?
117. If any one fails to pay a debt, and sells himself, his wife, his son, or daughter for money or give them away for forced labor: they shall work for three years in the house of the man who bought them and in the fourth year they shall be set free.
138. If a man wishes to separate from his wife who has borne him no children, he shall give her the amount of her purchase money and the dowry which she brought from her father's house, and let her go.
141. If a man's wife ... wishes to leave it: if her husband offer her release, she may go on her way, and he gives her nothing as a gift of release. If her husband does not wish to release her, and if he take another wife, she shall remain as servant in her husband's house.
196. If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out.
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.
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.
Source: “Code of Hammurabi,” 1780 BCE.
Vocabulary dowry: money or property that a wife’s family gives to her husband when they marry

Document C: Hammurabi’s Code—Economy & Property

The following selections from Hammurabi’s Code discuss rules for Babylonian economy (consumer rights) and protection of personal property. As you read, pay attention to what rights and responsibilities came along with property and professions.

229. If a builder build a house for some one, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built fall in and kill its owner, then that builder shall be put to death.
230. If it kill the son of the owner the son of that builder shall be put to death.
215. If a physician make a large incision with an operating knife and cure it, or if he open a tumor (over the eye) with an operating knife, and saves the eye, he shall receive ten shekels in money.
216. If the patient be a freed man, he receives five shekels.
217. If he be the slave of some one, his owner shall give the physician two shekels.
218. If the make a large incision with the operating knife, and kill him, or open a tumor with the operating knife, and cut, out the eye, his hands shall be cut off.
219. If a physician make a large incision in the slave of a freed man, and kill him, he shall replace the slave with another slave.
21. If any one break a hole in to a house (break in to steal), he shall be put to death before that hold and be buried.
22. If any one is committing a robbery and is caught, then he shall be put to death.
Vocabulary:
Shekel: ancient coin
Physician: a medical doctor
Incision: a surgical cut made in the skin or flesh