The Punishment In Mesopotamian Civilization

In this chapter, Walton contrast the state and family religion within ancient Mesopotamia. The state religion sought to understand what the Gods wanted through the needs of the god, the jobs of the gods, and the whims of the gods; whereas the family religion sought to appease the ancestral and familial gods who would hear their requests and meet their needs.

Government:The government of Mesopotamia was a strange one. There were kings and nobles who decided the laws and declared how their subjects should worship the gods, Then there was a group of people who could overrule the king and say which law was good or not, and get rid of it if it was not.

Southern Mesopotamia had no government. The people of Southern Mesopotamia needed a ruler, someone to lead them through tough times as the population grew. Hammurabi started as their ruler, and then appointed himself King. The King also had people who worked for him, because he wouldn’t have been able to do all the jobs himself. He had people who built temples, settled disputes, maintained the complicated system of canals, and irrigated farms. He was also the lead priest at Ziggurat, the main temple. He had lots of rules that everyone in Mesopotamia had to follow. For example, “If a judge try a case, reach a decision, and present his judgment in writing; if later error shall appear in his decision, and it be through his own fault, then he shall pay twelve times the fine set by him in the case, and he shall be publicly removed from the judge's bench, and never again shall he sit there to render judgment.” (Hammurabi Codes 5) This just on example of how detailed the 282 rules could be. This shows us that Hammurabi was very strict and liked rules.

The Egyptian and Mesopotamian religion and society were similar, but their government system was different. The religions in Egypt and Mesopotamia were similar because both were polytheistic, had beliefs of an afterlife, as well as priests who were part of the upper levels of the social hierarchy. Social similarities between

Mesopotamians laws showed incredibly bad inequality between men and women. If a man's slave women speaks insolently to her, her mouth shall be scoured with one quart of salt (Ur-Nammu). It specifies to not honor a slave girl in your house (Akkadian). The father in Akkadian was basically saying slave girl as something that is worse than saying slave. If a man strike a free-born woman so that she lose her unborn child, he shall pay ten shekels for her loss (Hammurabi’s Code). That man should be sacrificed because he basically killed a

Mesopotamian society was a patriarchal society, and so women possessed far fewer privileges and rights in their marriage. A woman's place was at home and failure to fulfill her duties was grounds for divorce. If she was not able to bear children, her husband could divorce her but he had to repay the dowry. If his wife tried to leave the home in order to engage in business, her husband could divorce her and did not have to repay the dowry. Furthermore, if his wife was a "gadabout, . . . neglecting her house [and] humiliating her husband," she could be drowned.

"If a man's wife be surprised (in flagrante delicto) with another man, both shall be tied and thrown into the water, but the husband may pardon his wife and the king his slaves." Women were taken for granted during this period of time, they had less power than the man. Today, it is stated that the man is the head of the household which can relate back to the time of Hammurabi's code but, the difference is that woman have more authority now compared to the women in Mesopotamia. Slaves were treated poorly related to a person of the free class, the slaves would be treated as property just like the woman. People would be labeled as prostitues, paramours and etc. "If he give a male or female slave away for forced labor, and the merchant sublease them, or sell them for money, no objection can be raised." I don’t feel their system was more effective than ours because today we try to make sure that everyone has equal rights, the only thing we have in common is that we define people by their "social

• I also notice that punishments were often more severe on women along with poor and less on rich people. I believe the law code was actually in favor to wealthy citizens. This being said, we can understand that social inequality as well as injustice was present in Ancient Mesopotamia. Consequently, the working class together with the slaves couldn’t do anything about this unfortunate situation and had to live with it or be punished or even killed for questioning the King’s

The Babylonian definition of justice was a harsh and especially a burden on the accuser and judges. For example, the laws clearly state that not only is there a burden on the accused but also on the accuser should they be unable to prove their case. For instance, the penalty for homicide states that “if a man has made allegations against another man, and he has laid a charge of homicide against him but is unable to substantiate his guilt, the one who made the allegations against him shall be killed.” ( ) Hammurabi ruled a vast empire and would not have been able to rule on every case himself. () notes that in the king’s absence, a committee of men from the communities involved could act as a judge in Hammurabi’s place. The penalties for a judge

Hammurabi’s code comes with punishments and rewards, these punishments and rewards make Hammurabi’s code unjust and just. Bases on the documents, Hammurabi’s code offers harsh punishments for mistakes, and nicer rewards. This essay will examine the punishments of Hammurabi’s code, as well as the rewards, and decide whether to not it is just. Now let’s start a new adventure into Hammurabi’s code.

After reading The Code of Assura, it is a reliable source of women’s lives during this time. The law has a clear understanding that they honored their wives as queens and protected them from death, rape, and abuse from their husbands. In I.9 stated “If a man brings his hand against the wife of a man, treating her like a little child, and they prove it against him, and convict him, one of his fingers they shall cut off. If he kisses her, his lower lip with blade of an axe they shall draw drown and they shall cut off (The Code of the Assura, c. 1075 BCE).” The law made it very clear that men can’t abuse and belittle their wives. Even though men created the code, I really could tell that everyone was punished equal, not based off gender

Tyrone King Professor Gordon History-101-080 12 September 2015 The Code of Hammurabi During the reign of Hammurabi of Babylon (1795-1750 B.C.E), king Hammurabi enacted the code. This code consisted of 282 that set standards of conduct and harsh justice for his empire in ancient Mesopotamia. Hammurabi’s laws also provided evidence about the status and rights of women in Babylonian society. These laws demonstrated scaled punishments, the idea of “an eye for an eye” or “a tooth for a tooth” (lex talionis, the law of retaliation), depending on the social status of that person.

The Code of Hammurabi shows how well organized the Mesopotamian culture was. Code number fifty-five speaks of how if the owner of a ditch does not keep the ditch strong and working order and the ditch collapse and floods the field of another then the owner of the ditch had to pay the for the loss crops. This shows us that the Mesopotamian people had rules and consequences. Code fifty-six talks about if a man flood his neighbors field then he has to pay. The code talks about gur and gan and this shows us that they have their own measuring system. One final code is number 209 and it talks about if a man hit a free woman and she loses her unborn child then that man has to pay her. This code lets us know that the Mesopotamian people cared about

Capital punishment dates back to 18th century B.C. in the Code of King Hammurabi of Babylon. Under this code twenty five crimes, excluding murder, were punishable by death. In historical data, the first death penalty was imposed to offender who was blamed for magic in 16th century BC Egypt (Regio, 1997). Unfortunately, death penalty is still practiced in some countries. For example, in Egypt recently on 24 March 2014, Minya Criminal Court imposed death penalty to 529 followers of Egyptian ex-president Mohamed Morsi for their participation in violence (Amnesty International, 2014). Nowadays, United States also practices capital punishment. According to the fact sheet of DPIC (2014) 20 criminals from different states were executed this year

Hammarabi's Law Code Many people may not know it, but they have heard part of Hammurabi's Law Code before. It is where the fabled "eye-for-an-eye" statement came from. However, this brutal way of enforcing laws was not always the case in ancient Mesopotamia, where Hammurabi ruled. The Laws