Section 3: Legacy of Mesopotamia Pg 43Pg 43 Level of Crime depends on status of criminal and victim. Punishment varies for crime itselfLevel of Crime depends on status of criminal and victim. Punishment varies for crime itself What would it be like if laws were not written…..so the judge could make them up.What would it be like if laws were not written…..so the judge could make them up.

Hammurabi’s Code Code- organized list of laws so you know what is expected Live by the idea that all laws should be written down and applied fairly Hammurabi ruled Babylonia from 1792 to 1750 BC and set the rules for everyone to follow 282 laws in different categories such as trade, labor, property, family, adopting children, practicing medicine, hiring wagons, controlling dangerous animals

Eye for an Eye Punishment should be similar to the crime committed but it was not equal for all people Harshness depended on importance of victim and law breaker The higher the class of victim the greater the penalty Example-Ox owner bored a noble paid one half a mina of silver, if bored a slave 1-3 a mina Accidental crimes were the same as real crimes Example-If a doctor operates on a patient and the patient dies then his hand is cut off

Laws for everyone Laws important to us because they were written down Everyone knew the rules and punishments May seem harsh but Hammurabi’s code was an improvement over the previous laws His laws were not the first laws but they were the first to be organized recorded set we have found

Small Group Round Robin how would life be different without writing Name some things people keep records of (pg. 45)

Art of Writing Writing didn’t suddenly appear-It took a long time to develop Writing first developed around 3100 B.C. in Mesopotamia Ancient Scribes-record keepers, very important busy people Earliest records are of farm animals Since only a few could write it was one of the most valuable skills to have Held positions of great respect

Scribes Recorded sales and trades, tax payments, gifts for the gods, and marriages, and deaths Some had special tasks such as calculating how much food the army would need, or the number if diggers needed to build a canal Kept these records on clay

Record in Clay Tigris and Euphrates rivers provided the clay needed Scribes took the smooth, wet clay and shaped them into tablets Shape and size of tablet depended on purpose-large ones for dictionaries that stayed in one place and small ones like postcards for messages

Clay Tablets What are the advantages and disadvantages of writing on tablets? Advantage: Last a long time, no erase, fireproof Disadvantages: Heavy, bulky, break, hard transport

How writing was invented Long before writing Sumerians used pieces of clay as tokens or symbols They were used to keep track of how many animals were bought and sold, or how much food had been grown First written words were symbols that represented specific objects such as ox, grain, water As people learned to record ideas as well as facts, the symbols changed

Eventually, scribes combined symbols to make groups of wedges and lines known as cuneiform Cuneiform script could be used to represent different languages so it was very flexible and highly useful Look at the chart on page 46 Decided symbols set in rows and read left to right and read from top to bottom

Phoenician Alphabet

Questions How was Hammurabi’s code fair in some ways and unfair in others? -Fair: Laws made to help people settle conflicts –Unfair: Laws were applied unequally depending on victim’s class

Questions How was writing in early forms different from modern writing? –Today we write letters not symbols and use pens, pencils, paper, and computers not clay