What was hammurabis code

The term Ancient, or Archaic, Greece refers to the years B. Archaic Greece saw advances in art, poetry and technology, but is known as the age in which the polis, or city-state, was By turns charismatic and ruthless, brilliant and power hungry, diplomatic and Live TV.

This Day In History. History Vault. Hammurabi Hammurabi was the sixth king in the Babylonian dynasty, which ruled in central Mesopotamia present-day Iraq from c. Recommended for you. Black Codes. Secret Presidential Codes Puzzle Clues. Building the Great Obelisks at Luxor. If he struck a freeman's female slave and has caused her to have a miscarriage, he shall pay two shekels of silver. If that female slave has died, he shall pay one-third mina of silver. Physicians and Malpractice.

If a physician operates on a man for a sever wound with a bronze lancet and saves the man's life, or if he opens an abscess in the eye of a man with a bronze lancet and saves that man's eye, he shall receive ten shekels of silver.

If he is a plebeian, he shall receive five shekels. If he is a slave, the owner shall pay two shekels. If a physician operates on a man for a sever wound with a bronze lancet and causes the man's death, or destroys the man's eye, they shall cut off his hand.

If a physician operates on a slave for a severe wound and causes his death, he shall restore a slave of equal value.

If a builder builds a house for a man and does not make its construction sound, and the house which he has built collapses and causes the death of the owner of the house, the builder shall be put to death. If a builder builds a house for a man and does not make its construction sound, and a wall cracks, that builder shall strengthen that wall at his own expense. Property and Wage Regulations. If a man has hired an ox, or an ass, and a lion has killed it in the open field, the loss falls on the owner.

If a man has hired an ox and has caused its death, by carelessness, or blows, he shall restore ox for ox, to the owner of the ox. If a man has hired an ox, and god has struck it, and it has died, the man that hired the ox shall make affidavit and go free.

If a bull has gone wild and gored a man, and caused his death, there can be no suit against the owner. If a man's ox be a gorer , and has revealed its evil propensity as a gorer , and he has not blunted its horn, or shut up the ox, and then that ox has gored a free man, and caused his death, the owner shall pay half a mina of silver If a man hires a field laborer, he shall pay him eight gur of grain per year.

If a man hires a herdsman, he shall pay him six gur of grain per year. If a man hires on ox to thresh, twenty sila of grain is his daily hire. 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. Code of Hammurabi c. This code was not was not an entirely new set of laws, but a compilation and revision of earlier law codes of the Sumerians and Akkadians Prologue:.

At that time I decreed: Justice 1. Rather than ignoring these events, banks should seek to minimize the harm caused. Some career fields have a strict system of incentives and disincentives, both official and unofficial.

Doctors get promotions and respect if they do their jobs well, and risk heavy penalties for medical malpractice.

The same goes for military and security personnel. They get promotions and the honor of a job well done if they succeed, and the severe disincentive of shame if they fail. Hammurabi and his advisors were unconcerned with complex laws and legalese.

Instead, they wanted the Code to produce results and to be understandable by everyone. When you align incentives of everyone in both positive and negative ways, you create a system that takes care of itself. After completing construction, a builder can walk away with a little extra profit, while the hapless client is unknowingly left with an unsafe house. It rewards those who take unwise risks, trick their customers, and harm other people for their own benefit.

Rather than the builder being motivated to earn as much profit as possible and the homeowner being motivated to get a safe house, they both shared the latter goal.

The Code illustrates the efficacy of using self-preservation as an incentive. We feel safer in airplanes that are flown by a person and not by a machine because, in part, we believe that pilots want to protect their own lives along with ours. When we lack an incentive to protect ourselves, we are far more likely to risk the safety of other people. This is why bankers are willing to harm their customers if it means the bankers get substantial bonuses.

This is why companies that market harmful products, such as fast food and tobacco, are content to play down the risks. Or why the British initiative to reduce the population of Indian cobras by compensating those who caught the snakes had the opposite effect. Or why Wells Fargo employees opened millions of fake accounts to reach sales targets.

Incentives backfire when there are no negative consequences for those who exploit them. External incentives are based on extrinsic motivation, which easily goes awry. This basalt stele has the Code of Hammurabi inscribed in cuneiform script in the Akkadian language.

Privacy Policy. Skip to main content. Search for:. Key Points The Code of Hammurabi is one of the oldest deciphered writings of length in the world written c. The Code consisted of laws, with punishments that varied based on social status slaves, free men, and property owners. Major laws covered in the Code include slander, trade, slavery, the duties of workers, theft, liability, and divorce. Nearly half of the code focused on contracts, and a third on household relationships.

There were three social classes: the amelu the elite , the mushkenu free men and ardu slave. Women had limited rights, and were mostly based around marriage contracts and divorce rights.