The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1903-01-19
. Oldest Of HlI Law Books.

ssTHIS inscription is doubtless the
most important find that has ever
been made in Babylonian literature"
Such is the opinion expressed by Pro-
fessor Hugo Winckler. of the Unfver-
sity of Berlin, in his translation. just
published. of the laws of Hammurabi,
taken from a steIe discovered a few
months ago by the French expedition
that has been for years engaged in
archaeological researches in Susa, the
ancient capital of Persia, under the
direction of Professor de Morgan. The
inscription was found on a diorite
block, 2.25 meters in height. taken
from the old royal castle in Susa.
This STEELE contains, according to the
New York Sun. besides a picture
illustrating how King Hammurabi re-
ceived these laws from the sun god, a
complete legal code of 2s2 separate
laws, of which, however Nos 66 to SO
have been chiseled out. This gap is
in part remedied by fragments found
in the great library of Assurbanipal.
There are sixteen columns of inscrip-
ton found on the front of the stone
beneath the picture of Hammurabi and
twenty eight on the rear.
special Introduction and concluding
admonition to future generations to OBJ
I
this code indicate that the laws con-
tanned in it were made by Hammurabi.
the contemporary of Abraham, the Am
raphal of the scriptures. and that this
is the oldest corpus juris extant. ante
dating even the days of Moses by half
thousand years and more the date
| of Hammurabi being bout 1900 B. c.
That Babylonian inscription of this
sort should be found in the Persian CAPT
tai IS readily explained by the fact that *
was brought to Susa as booty by the
/ Elanite kings, and it is not the only
/ specimen of the kind here found, the
1 transfer being made probably in. the sew
] enteenth or sixteenth century The dis
i eoVery only confirms what was indicated
| by the Tel-el-Amara finds in Egypt
| dating from the fourteenth century,
| which are also in cuneiform writing,
1 namely, that this was at that early period
the common language OF diplomacy and
/ ton.
An analysis of these laws shows that
! the code was confined to secular matters
| and while in many instances it forces
/ upon the reader. both by its agreements
/ ano its disagreemsnts, comparison with
4 the legal SYSTEM Of the Pentateuch. it il
| sharply distinguished from this by the
! absence of religious or ceremonial com
mands and prohibitions.
/ 1t is exclusively a civic code. In gen
eral it shows its Semitic origin by recog-
MIXING. even 10 greater extent than Ii
/ done by the Pentateuch, the lex talioniS
I d q
/ tooth: and many of the merciful charac.
| teristics of the Mosaic legislation arr
/ conspicuous by their absence. But with
| in these limitations il doubtless is whai
| Winckler calls it, lone of the most i'm
porIant original sources in the history o.
mankind in general
! The original text, together with
| French translation. Is published by tn,
| Assyriologist of the expedition. P. Y
Scheil, in the fourth volume of the Del
! egation en- Perse'' the official narrative
of the expedition. There is a remarkable
monOtony in the forms of these laws
| each beginning with the word III, anC
this popularity as we'll as its stringen
measures is suggestive of the DraconiaI
legislation.
The series begins with 12S laws that re
fer chiefly to property rights and bust
ness affair. OF these here are some tina
are characteristic:
2. If anybody raises a suspicion aSains
another and he against whom this suSpi
cion has been raised goes down TO tn
river and jumps into the water. and