committed against an upper class person. For example, a doctor whose poor medical treatment allowed a rich person to die was punished more harshly (having his hands cut off) than in the case of a slave, where he would only be required to pay a fine.

The Code, however, also showed a society struggling to enact social justice. While it did not perfect this concept, it strove towards an ideal of an "eye for an eye": justice that treated people with (some) equity. It also adhered to the idea that a person was innocent until proven guilty.

The Code reveals a sophisticated and diversified hierarchical society with private property rights and a legal system that privileged the upper classes and yet honored the ideal (if not the reality) of universal justice. A hunter-gather society that was more nomadic and had far less wealth would be less concerned with property rights. It also would not have had the resources to break into privileged and less privileged classes. Therefore, its laws would not specify different penalties for members of different classes.

I think we can draw a few things about life in Babylonian society. From some of the laws, we can see that the Babylonians believed in the idea of having a trial by ordeal. We can see that in the following law:

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, then he who had 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.

In this instance, we see that rather than hold a trial by jury, the person accused of a crime would instead have a trial by ordeal, in which, as a result of their either sinking or swimming in a river, they would be deemed innocent or guilty. This clearly would lead to many individuals accused of a crime not receiving the justice they actually deserved.

Another thing we can see in Hammurabi's Code is the strictness of the laws in Babylonian society. Many crimes, including those involving issues such as theft, were punishable by death.

We also see that punishment was not uniform for all people in Babylonian society. If a crime were committed against an individual of a higher social status, the punishment is harsher than it would be for committing a similar crime against an individual of a lower status.

With as many laws as there are in that code, it has a lot to tell us about ancient Babylonian life.  For example:

• It tells us that life in Babylon was stratified and people were not equal.  We can see this because, for example, there was a great difference in the punishment for killing a free woman as opposed to killing a maid.
• It tells us that men had more power than women and women needed to be in some way protected from men.  You can see this in all the laws about what men have to do if they want to divorce their wives.  For example, a man can't divorce his wife if she has borne him children.  This kind of thing implies men tried this stuff and that it would have hurt women.

Hammurabi’s Code is one of the earliest preserved written law codes. The best preserved copy was inscribed on a tall stone stele that would have been publicly displayed. It was written in approximately 1754 BC and set out rules concerning what now would include both criminal and civil law, including penalties for violations of many of its prescriptions. The introduction to the code states the following:

Hammurabi, the exalted prince, who feared God, to bring about the rule of righteousness in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil-doers; so that the strong should not harm the weak.

This introductory portion concludes by stating that Hammurabi "brought about the well-being of the oppressed." This suggests that the purpose of the law code is to create a social system that is bound by rules and is not corrupt. In this system, the powerful cannot act with impunity, and the ruler acts in accordance with the will of the gods to protect the weak from injustice. This suggests a theocracy, in which religion and kingship are closely tied together.

Additional important information about the society can be seen in the high level of social stratification, as penalties for a crime depend on gender and social position. Slavery is an accepted part of the code.

Finally, much of the code concerns commerce, employment, and property, suggesting an economically advanced society with substantial amounts of domestic and foreign trade. There are craftspeople, bureaucrats, merchants, landowners, agricultural workers, and slaves.

One aspect of early Babylonian society that emerges in Hammurabi's code is the way that it was characterized by class divisions. These divisions were enshrined in the legal systems established by Hammurabi's code. For example, law 202 stipulates that "...if any one strike the body of a man higher in rank than he, he shall receive sixty blows with an ox-whip in public." Additionally, the famous "eye for an eye" principle did not apply across classes. According to law 200, if "a man knock out the teeth of his equal, his teeth shall be knocked out." However, if he knocked out the teeth of a freed man, he was required only to pay a small fine.

Hammurabi's code also reveals a society that revolved around agriculture, and agricultural labor. Slaves were everywhere in the code, and there are many laws that governed the economic transactions upon which an agricultural society was based. There are laws governing renting oxen, for example, laws regulating dam and irrigation canal construction, and many other aspects of a river valley civilization.

Hammurabi's code also reveals gender distinctions. Women had, in short, fewer rights than men, and were to a large extent treated as property. Moreover, many laws governing inheritance indicate clearly that Hammurabi's society was a patriarchal one. That each household was meant to be governed by the father is established by law 195, which reads: "If a son strike his father, his hands shall be hewn off." These are just a few things that Hammurabi's code of laws reveals about early Babylonian society, which is one reason why these laws continue to be studied.