crime and punishment: The Middle East to death for making a false declaration or for being in an illegitimate business THE MIDDLE EAST BY DAVID PETECHUK The world’s oldest surviving legal codes and laws come from Mesopotamia The first known legal code, the Code of Urukagina, dates to 2350 b.c.e., and the region probably had legal prescriptions for centuries prior to this code, which was developed by and named after a ruler of Lagash Before the Code of Urukagina, laws designating crimes and their punishment were probably based on the customs of the people and prevailing ideas of right and wrong Although customs and laws transmitted orally served their purpose, as Mesopotamian cities and kingdoms grew and literacy spread, laws were put into writing to reduce vagueness or public discord about exactly what constituted a crime and what should be the punishment As with most ancient cultures, punishments for crimes were often severe For example, a document dating to around the time of the Code of Urukagina notes that both thieves and adulteresses had their names inscribed on rocks, which were then used to stone them to death Although the Code of Urukagina is the oldest-known legal code, an actual text has never been found, and its existence is known only through references in other ancient writings The oldest legal code recovered dates to time of Ur-Nammu, who ruled the Sumerian city of Ur from 2112 to 2095 b.c.e Of the code’s decipherable segments, approximately 40 statements focus on crimes and punishment Monetary fines and the death penalty were the primary punishments for crimes and were established in a manner that the reflected the social conventions of the times For example, deflowering a virgin wife of another man resulted in a death sentence However, if the woman was only a slave to a man, the penalty was only five shekels of silver Murder was punishable by death, but physical wounds inflicted on another were punished with a monetary fine, partly because prison was seldom used as a means of long-term punishment The jewel of ancient Mesopotamian law is the Code of Hammurabi Established in the 18th century b.c.e., it is the earliest surviving record of an entire code of laws proclaimed by a king to his people What makes the code especially exciting to historians is that it includes the entire prologue explaining moral and spiritual rationalization for the laws Hammurabi, who ruled Babylon from 1795 to 1750 b.c.e., states that his goals are to punish severely those who are evil and to protect those who are weak Nevertheless, many of the laws were based on social status, with harsher penalties inflicted for crimes committed against the upper class while the same crime against someone from the lower class usually garnered a much less severe punishment Hammurabi, however, kept in mind that lower social status meant lesser ability to pay fines As a result, poor people usually had to pay low- 299 er fines than their rich counterparts Overall Hammurabi’s code applied various penalties to the population according to three classes: amelu (patrician), muskinu (free non-landowner), and ardu (slave) The most significant aspect of Hammurabi’s codes for crime and punishment is his establishment of the law of retribution, known in legal language as lex talionis and popularly familiar as the biblical law of “an eye for an eye.” For example, historians believe that before Hammurabi, monetary fines for causing bodily injuries were deemed sufficient largely because injuries to private individuals were not considered crimes against the state or society in general Hammurabi, however, set more severe penalties for physically harming another person, such as cutting off the hand of a son who struck his father His rationale for these harsher penalties may have stemmed not only from the concept of lex talionis but also from a belief that fines and lesser punishments alone were not enough to ensure that his people obeyed the laws Hammurabi’s comprehensive set of codes guided by lex talionis covered a wide range of crimes, such as bearing false witness The penalty for someone falsely accusing another of crime was to suffer the punishment assigned to that crime So if a man falsely accused another of murder, the accuser would be executed instead Other examples include cutting off a surgeon’s hand when his work resulted in the death or loss of a limb of a patient and the execution of a builder or his son if a building collapsed and killed its owner Cases dealt with in this manner also included crimes involving slavery, sexual offenses, assault and bodily injuries, murder, theft, and debts As for the death penalty, ancient Mesopotamian laws required death for a wide range of crimes, including the illegal buying of a slave from a minor, selling or receiving stolen goods, false claim to another’s possessions, disorderly conduct in a tavern, and the practice of magic While the means of execution for these crimes was often not specified, other crimes resulted in specific types of execution Hanging was the punishment for many crimes, among them burglary, obliterating a slave’s brand, and a woman’s seeking to have someone murder her husband Other forms of execution included burning when convicted of incest with one’s own mother and drowning for certain cases of adultery, rape, and bigamy The Code of Hammurabi greatly influenced the legal system throughout the Near East and Persia for several centuries, including the dominant rule of the Assyrians until around 500 b.c.e As a result, the predominant form of punishment remained corporal and, other than death, included severe beatings of up to 100 blows, forced labor, and various types of mutilation, such as cutting off the tongue Similarly, in ancient Persia, under the rule of Darius I (r 522–486 b.c.e.), the penalty for attacking and severely injuring or killing someone was five to 200 lashes of the whip For the most severe crimes, usually crimes against property, the state, or the king or his family, death by impalement was a typical punishment (Little information is available concerning punishments for ordinary crimes in Persia.)