Hammurabi: The First Babylonian Empire

Twelve hundred years before the Days of Nebuchadnezzar, King Hammurabi of the first Babylonian empire formulated the earliest known set of civil laws. These laws would be applied to every person in his kingdom. The laws would formally define the criminal, economic and social order within the empire.
The first and most extraordinary example was the Hammurabi’s code which was discovered by Egyptologist, Gustave Jequier and Jaques de Morgan in the year 1902 CE, during the famous Susa expedition in modern day Iran.
During the expedition, Gustave Jequier unearthed a massive basalt stone stele covered in an ancient dialect of Mesopotamian cuneiform. To decipher the long dead language, Jaques commissioned cuneiform expert, Jean-Vincent Scheil, to decipher the text. In the year 1902 CE, Scheil published his remarkable findings within the Editio Princeps.
The decipherment of cuneiform was an arduous and frustrating mystery that plagued scholars for centuries, until Sir Henry Rawlinson of the East India Trading Company discovered the Behistun Inscription of King Darius of Persia (522-486 BCE). The tablets consisted of “identical text in the three official languages of the empire: Old Persian, Babylonian, and Elamite”
The carving depicts Hammurabi accepting the figurative representation of power, authority and responsibility from the sun God Shamash. (Gardeners p.44). Hammurabi is at eye level with the divine power of God, he gestures a sign of respect, while accepting the Rod and ring of authority. This is an early example of a common theme seen throughout history. Authority is bestowed upon man to rule and judge others by divine proclamation. The concept of divine proclamation and the right to rule is the basis of almost every governing body seen throughout our