Babylon

A detailed Summary of Babylon

The code of Hammurabi was one of the most important documents in Babylon history. It was adopted from many Sumerian customs that had been around for a while before the Babylonians. Though many of the Laws were adopted from Sumeria they were published by Hammurabi and thus known as the code of Hammurabi. This code had four main parts to it. They were: Civil Laws, Commercial Laws, Penal Laws, and the Law of procedures.

The Civil Law was an important one to the people. It set up a social class system based on a hierarchy based on wealth. The Babylonians had three classes according to the code. They were the freeman or wealthy people, the semi- freeman who were able to become slaves at any time, and the slaves who were of course the lowest class.

The next section in the code was the Commercial Law. This had to do with business transactions and most things relating to business. It set up 20% interest rates. There was a political economy based on economic status. The wealthy classes were the creditors and the poorer class was the debtors.

After the Commercial Law came the Penal Law. This had to do with the issue of crime. The laws were unusually harsh do to their ineducation. Despite this the wealthy class usually enjoyed m

ore freedom from the law than the lower classes. There was no jury in the court back in the times of Babylon. The code of Hammurabi was like an eye for an eye punishment. If you killed someone than you would be killed.

All the time that different empires and civilizations were taking over the Mesopotamia region they were spreading their ideas, customs, and religion. Though there were many cases of this there are just two I would like to mention. The first one is how the Hittites spread the art of extracting iron from iron ore. After the Hittites had been taken over their people started to go to different locations in the Middle East and opened up shops. This way the idea of mining iron spread to all over the Middle East. The other instance is the Code of Hammurabi. This code taught discipline and gave laws instead of just allowing chaos. This idea spread to all of the other civilizations after Hammurabi and therefore they had a basis on which to base their own laws and rules.

The prophet Zoroaster introduced Zoroastrianism to Persia. Zoroaster lived in about 600 BC and rejected the Old Persian Gods. He though there was only one wise god named Ahura Mazda and that Ahura Mazda ruled the world. He also believed that Ahura Mazda was in a constant fight with Ahriman who was the prince of evil and lies. He preached that each individual had to choose which side to support and that on a final judgment day Ahura Mazda would come down and judge everybody's actions. Those who had done well would go to paradise and those that hadn't would be doomed to eternal suffering. Zoroaster's teachings were very peaceful and were collected in a book called the Zend-Avesta. There were 3 golden rules in this book. The first was turning an enemy into a friend. This involved piety, which stands for honesty. The second was turning a wicked person into a righteous person. The last was turning an ignorant person

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Approximate Word count = 1280
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History