Hammurabi becomes king of the First Dynasty of Babylon (Old Babylonian period). His reign provides the political setting in which the law collection later associated with his name was compiled and monumentalized.
Hammurabi’s legal decisions were collected toward the end of his reign; the resulting text is conventionally treated as a major Old Babylonian law collection consisting of a prologue, case-law provisions, and an epilogue.
The law collection is carved in Old Babylonian Akkadian on a monumental stone stele topped by a relief showing Hammurabi before the sun-god Shamash (a standard royal-justice iconography). This stele becomes the primary surviving witness to the text.
The stele’s epilogue presents it as a publicly consultable monument: it frames the inscription as authoritative “just decisions” and imagines wronged parties coming before the king’s statue/monument to have the text read aloud and learn their judgment.
Ancient framing within the text links the monument to Babylon (often connected with the Esagila/temple complex in later discussion), though the stele’s exact original findspot within Babylonia is debated in scholarship.
Beyond the monumental stele, the laws circulated as manuscripts and were repeatedly copied by scribes over many centuries. This reception history reflects the text’s role in education and scholarly transmission, not only immediate legal practice.
The line of Hammurabi’s Amorite dynasty ends when the Hittites sack Babylon (middle chronology date), transforming the political landscape in which Old Babylonian royal inscriptions—including the law stele—had been produced and displayed.
The stele was later removed from Babylonia and transported to Susa (Elam), where it was deposited and ultimately preserved. This relocation was pivotal for the stele’s survival and later rediscovery outside Mesopotamia proper.
Portions near the bottom of the stele were polished/erased in antiquity, consistent with an attempt to remove or replace part of the inscription (often discussed in connection with its Elamite appropriation).
French excavations at Susa under Jacques de Morgan uncovered the stele in fragments (1901–1902). The archaeological recovery marks the modern beginning of the stele’s reception history and scholarly editing.
Jean-Vincent Scheil produced the first major scholarly publication of the stele’s text in 1902, enabling rapid international translation, debate about the document’s function, and broad incorporation into comparative legal history.
After division of finds from the Susa excavations, the stele entered the Louvre’s collection (SB 8) and became a central public and scholarly reference point for Old Babylonian law and royal ideology.
The Code of Hammurabi: Compilation and Reception (c. 1760–1500 BCE)
