Survey 1

Hammurabi ruled from 1792 B.C. till 1750 B.C. and made the most of his time as king. He worked hard to build Babylon into a far larger city and set on a conquest of the surrounding lands, eventually taking over most of lower Mesopotamia and creating the empire of Babylonia. This expansion allowed culture to grow and change significantly and also allowed for more precious materials to be used in the arts among other things. Due to the conquest of Hammurabi, Babylon became the “holy city’ and cultural capital of the empire. after doing all this for the small town of Babylon, Hammurabi was to do one final thing for his empire that would put his name down in history- the code of Hammurabi! 

During Hammurabi’s reign he put together a set of 282 laws which he had inscribed on a large block of diorite. Hammurabi’s code is one of the earliest forms of law and one of the longest deciphered writings discovered to date. This code went over such things as fraud, slavery, theft, trade and various other subjects that related to both crime and home life.  This code along with his major building projects allowed Babylon to thrive and go through massive cultural changes and eventually take over the surrounding area and become the empire of Babylonia. After taking over the surrounding states and towns he would give smaller clay tablets with the rules inscribed to the annexed cities to keep the laws uniform across his empire. It is also known now that most towns had a library as they believe both men and women should be educated in order to be prosperous. Many of these texts were translated from sumerian and many of these works still exist today 

History.com Editors. “Babylonia.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 2 Feb. 2018, www.history.com/topics/ancient-middle-east/babylonia.

“Babylonia.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 27 Sept. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonia.

“Babylon.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 29 Sept. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon.