What are some of the specific crimes mentioned in Hammurabi's code of laws?

Answer 1

Answering "What crimes did the code of Hammurabi identify?"it mentions nearly anything we call a crime today:

- murder (=killing without a war-situation, without defending the own life, and without a judge ordering a death-penality) of men by men (or wife)

- and the killing of a man or wife by some animal like the oxen of men

- theft of property, land, boat, things, of cattle and of men or slaves of another

- there is a difference between, from whom it was stolen

- robbery (= stealing with beating, killing or urging openly that person) - with the same difference, whether it was stolen from a private's property or from the King's property or from the sanctuary's property (this had always the most high degree of penality)

- adultery with a woman of a citizen

- sex with another's husband or wife

- sex of a man with a man

- sex of a person with an animal

- sex with a daughter (virgin) living in her father's household

- to bungle a house to build for another (if it crashes and hurts lifes) - here is a difference, wo is killed by that building: if it kills the wife of the houseowner, the wife of the architect is to be killed - if a child, then a child, if the owner, then the architect himself

- treachery against the own government - especially interesting: if - by chance - a pub owner(ess) hears people sitting there and planning a treachery and fails to tell it to the authorities and it becomes wellknown, that the hearer did not tell, this one is to kill for treachery him/herself (the most of them seem to have been wifes)

- swearing false if to give a testimony in a court of judges

- blaspheming or pillorying the own religion (even a stranger was not allowed to curse, blame or blaspheme his own foreign religion, judges or state while visiting this other land) - and not the religion, judges or state-communities of Babel while being here as a visitor

- hurting or wounding another person - the makers of remedies and the doctor's treatments had some laws, not to wrong the clients and not to hurt or poison somebody severely

- using false measures on the market, different weights for different buyers etc.

- disobeying the own house-father, disrespecting the own parents or worse: to beat or curse openly a respect-person

- disobeying the decisions of a court of judges (even abroad)

- to accuse another person falsely (if in a court, the penality is the same as for that accused crime)

- to use witchcraft was forbidden

- the death penalities ordered by these judges were water, fire, sword or rope

- other legal possibilties were slashing and letting pay a fee

- they had not a prison for a penality in ancient times, but a form of prison in the house of the lender, if another did lend some money (or money-worth property) but did not pay back - the lender had to feed his "guest", with "bead and water"-soup, or similar - but had to bring him with on 3 market-times, going behind him, with a rope tied on his hands, another one could free him by paying the debt - if a year had passed, maybe, and nobody freed that debitor, the lender could kill him or send him over the borders as "dead"

Maybe I wrote some errors here, only remembering the translation I read, but there is a complete translation (Sumerian-English) in internet to look at correctly.

This was not the first of all codices of Law in the history, but the king of Babel, Hamur Apil (Hammurabi) tells in the Prologue of his Codex about 40 communitiesstanding behind this, when mentioning the authority with the names of their G*ds - it was not the first codex, but became important: 1 exemplar was hewn in "eternal" Obsidian stone and stood in the Central-Sanctuary of *MarDuk, the city-Power of Babel, in cuneiform letters, and any visitor of this Sanctuary could look himself, what is the Law exactly telling and what not

- and each child of the citizens visiting the writer's schools had to learn this textes by heart and by reading and writing - later the students learnt to write about other topics, by dictate. Some of this textes tell about this school-time.

This Law gave the model for others who wished to have a similar Codex of written laws

- unto the part of Bible Moses got from his father-in-law (2 Mos Kp.21-40 parschath Mischpatim, 70 laws)

- unto the "Law of Solon" of Athen

- unto the "XII-table-Law" of the Roman Republic

... etc - more than 2000 years - nobody had a better idea.

- The formula is always, "Schumeschu Awilum..." ="If a man (does this or that) then (the procedure)"

- and is the same for own citizens or citizens of other states

- it makes no diffenence between men or wifes(beginning with 12 or 13 years old), or different professions (fishermen, farmers, craftsmen, landowners, cattle-breeders, merchants, ridders, warriors, or house-wifes, inhabiting houses in the cities, or wandering around in tents, or living on the water, seem to have the same legal dignity)

- but it makes a difference between citizens: "full free, honorables" and "habitually criminals (but nevertheess citizens)" - and on the other side the Royalsand the Holy Service personnel - and on the third side: slaves or "nobodies" (singles without family or state or national tribe) - they are not Awilum ="person" in a legal sense, but "things" with or without some worth for a citizen, only then they are mentioned

- it has another difference vs.today, that a family(father, mother, children and their slaves) belongs to 1 father (or mother) person in the eyes of this Law: remember the penalities in the case of anybody builds a house for another - those wife, child's or slaves did not do the wrong thing, but were to be killed in "equal to equal" hurting the builder for having hurt the owner in this "point"

This is called the first primitive principle of "Talion" - in Bible times it was refined, when teaching that not the son is to hurt as the "guilty" if his father made the fault. They are different souls and persons and each person is only guilty for his own deeds - and if it says "1 eye - 1 eye, 1 tooth - 1 tooth" is a rule not to do a bit more harm to another by law as the first had to suffer - if this is impossible (imagine: a blind one hurts in his anger 1 eye of another who could see), the guilty one has to give a money or some property instead

- and, the rule, not to do any penality or revenge without hearing a judge - in all those mentioned cases NOT

- and, in any case not mentioned here in the Codex the people should learn to ask a court of judges and to let them decide, in the similar measures of the given examples

This cuts and sets aside any private or spontanous revenge by pure feeling-offended and it is only a judges court who is allowed to order a Talion penality. Hammurabi's Codex in the same time The Bible tells about Abraham was a very good action in that time, we see the crimes were nearly all the same what we call a crime today, only the "what is to do" was much harder than today.

The Babylonians had another difference to the Biblical Law, because in Babylon they practicised a form of "Ordal" to find out whether a person is guilty p.e.in witchcraft:

this person had to stand the swim-probe, they bound her (or his) arms and legs together and put him (or her) in the river - the witch had to swim, and then they burnt her (or him) - the not-witch to drown ...

Well, nobody is perfect ...

mfG WiT

Answer 2

Every crime known to primitive societies like stealing a neighbor's slave or accusing someone with witchcrafts.

Answer 3

The code were divided with Religion, Military service, Trade, Slavery, The duties of workers and the Code of conduct.