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Code of Hammurabi Activity
Directions : Read each question described below. Work with your partner to decide on an appropriate punishment for the crime. Then, use the Code of
Hammurabi to figure out how Hammurabi would have dealt with the situation.
Your Decision
Hammurabi’s Decision
Question
What should be done to a carpenter who builds a house that then falls and kills the owner?
What should be done if a son is adopted and then the birth parents want him back?
What should happen to a boy who slaps his father?
What should be done about a wife who ignores her duties and quarrels with her husband?
What should happen if a man rents a boat and wrecks it?
What happens to the wine merchant who fails to arrest bad characters gathered at her shop?
How is truth determined when one man brings an accusation against another?
What happens when a man neglects a dam and it floods his neighbors’s lands?
What should be done if someone steals from a burning house?
What should be done if someone owes a debt but their harvest fails?
What happens when a man strikes someone of higher rank?
What happens if a slave rebels against his master?

1. Social status was important in Mesopotamian society. Based on the laws, how does social status affect punishment? Use specific examples from the law code.
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2. Describe the status of women in Mesopotamia compared to men. Use specific examples from the law code.
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Hammurabi’s Code of Laws
Code 2 : If any one bring an accusation against a man, and the accused go to the river and leap into the river, if he sink in the river his accuser shall take possession of his house. But if the river prove that the accused is not guilty, and he escape unhurt, they he who had brought the accusation shall be put to death, while he had leaped into the river shall take possession of the house that belonged to his accuser.
Code 25 : If fire break out in a house, and someone who comes to put it out cast his eye upon the property of the owner of the house, and take the property of the master of the house, he shall be thrown into that same fire.
Code 53 : If anyone be to lazy to keep his dam in proper condition, and does not so keep it.; 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 ruin.
Code 48 : If any one owe a debt for a loan and a storm prostrates the grain, or the harvest fail, or the grain does not grow for lack of water; in that year he need not give his creditor any grain, he washes his debt-tablet in water, and pays no rent for this year.
Code 108 : If bad characters gather in the house of a wine seller and she does not arrest those characters and bring them to the palace, the wine seller shall be put to death.
Code 143 : The woman has not been careful but has gadded about, neglecting her house and belittling her husband; they shall throw that woman into the water.
Code 185 : If a man takes in his own home a young boy as a son and rears him, one many not bring claim for that adopted son.
Code 195 : If a son strikes his father they shall cut off his hand.
Code 196: If a free man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out. [ An eye for an eye ]
Code 198: If he put out the eye of a commoner, or break the bone of a commoner, he shall pay one gold mina.
Code 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.
Code 200: If a man knock out the teeth of his equal, his teeth shall be knocked out. [ A tooth for a tooth ]
Code 201: If he knock out the teeth of a freed man, he shall pay one-third of a gold mina
Code 202 : If any one strike the body of a man of higher rank, then he shall receive sixty blows with an ox-whip in public.
Code 209 : If a man strike a free-born woman so that she lose her unborn child, he shall pay ten shekels for her loss.
Code 210: If the woman die, his daughter shall be put to death.
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Code 229 : If a build builds a house for a man and he does not make its construction sound and the house which he has build collapses and causes the death of the owner of the house, the builder shall be put to death.
Code 236 : If a man rent his boat to a sailor, and the sailor is careless, and the boat is wrecked or goes aground, the sailor shall give the owner of the boat another boat as compensation.
Code 282 : If a slave say to his master: “You are not my master,” if they convict him his master shall cut off his ear.