Name: ______
Period: ______
1) Using the chart below, identify the laws your thought were just, and those you thought were unjust.Write the # of the laws in the boxes below.
Just/Fair: / Unjust/Unfair:2) Which two laws under Hammurabi’s Code do you believe should be in place in the U.S. today (*be serious*)? And explain why.
3) What was your favorite law and why?
4) What was your least favorite law and why?
Hammurabi’s Code (Translated):
2. If anyone bring an accusation against a man, and the accused goes to the river and leaps into the river, if he sinks in the river his accuser shall take possession of his house. But if the river proves that the accused is not guilty, and he escapes unhurt, then he who has brought the accusation shall be put to death, while he who leaped into the river shall take possession of the house that had belonged to his accuser.
6. If a man has stolen goods from a temple, or house, he shall be put to death; and he that has received the stolen property from him shall be put to death.
14. If a man has stolen a child, he shall be put to death.
21. If a man has broken into a house he shall be killed before the breach and buried there.
109. If bad characters gather in the house of a wine seller and she does not arrest those characters and bring them to the palace, that wine seller shall be put to death.
110. If a "sister of god" (nun) who is not living in a convent opens a wine shop or enters a wine shop for a drink, they shall burn that woman.
117. If a man [is] in debt and is unable to pay his creditors, he shall sell his wife, son, or daughter, or bind them over to [slavery]. For three years they shall work in the houses of their purchaser or master; in the fourth year they shall be given their freedom.
128. If a man has taken a wife and has not executed a marriage contract, that woman is not a wife.
130. If a man has ravished another's betrothed wife, who is a virgin, while still living in her father's house, and has been caught in the act, that man shall be put to death; the woman shall go free.
143. If 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.
157. If a man, after his father's death, has [slept with] his mother, they shall both of them be burnt together.
185. If a man takes in his own home a young boy as a son and [raises] him, one may not bring claim for that adopted son.
195. If a son has struck his father, his hands shall be cut off.
196. If a man has knocked out the eye of a [noble], his eye shall be knocked out.
218. If a surgeon has operated…on a [noble] for a serious injury, and has caused his death…his hands shall be cut off.
229. If a builder has built a house for a man, and has not made his work sound, and the house he built has fallen, and caused the death of its owner, that builder shall be put to death.
282. If a slave has said to his master, "You are not my master," he shall be brought to account as his slave, and his master shall cut off his ear.