Near Eastern Antiquities

Discover humanity’s first written words & artifacts dating from the Neolithic era, the time when humans adopted agriculture and farming

Code of Hammurabi 1772 B.C.

Anu the Sublime, King of the Anunnaki, and Bel, the lord of Heaven and earth, called by name me, Hammurabi, the exalted prince, who feared God, to bring about the rule of righteousness in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil-doers; so that the strong should not harm the weak

Code of Hammurabi

Hammurabi was the sixth king in the Babylonian dynasty, which ruled in central Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) from c. 1894 to 1595 B.C. In the 30th year of his reign, Hammurabi began to expand his kingdom up and down the Tigris and Euphrates river valley, overthrowing the kingdoms of Assyria, Larsa, Eshunna and Mari until all of Mesopotamia was under his sway.

The Code of Hammurabi, compiled at the end of his reign, is a collection of legal precedents, set between prose celebrating Hammurabi’s just and pious rule. Hammurabi’s Code provides some of the earliest examples of the doctrine of “lex talionis,” or the laws of retribution, sometimes better known as “an eye for an eye.”

“Beasts of the mountains and the seas, which I had fashioned out of white limestone and alabaster, I had set up in its gates. I made it [the palace] fittingly imposing.”

— Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883–859 B.C.)

Human-headed Winged Bull

From the ninth to the seventh century B.C., the kings of Assyria ruled over a vast empire centered in northern Iraq. The great Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883–859 B.C.), undertook a vast building program at Nimrud, where the temples, palaces, and administrative offices of the empire were built.

The lamassu is a mythological hybrid, a protective deity known to “turn back an evil person,” that is composed of the head of a human, the body of a bull, and the wings of a bird. Lamassu protected and supported important doorways in Assyrian palaces.

Standard of Ur

The Standard of Ur is a fascinating rectangular box-like object which, through intricate mosaic scenes, presents the violence and grandeur of Sumerian kingship. The two sides of the Standard appear to be the two poles of Sumerian kingship, war and peace. Although we don’t know if this object ever saw the melee of battle, it certainly witnessed a grisly scene when it was deposited in one of the royal graves at the site of Ur in the mid-3rd millennium B.C.E.

That no attack should reach the walls of Babylon, I did what no earlier king had done … I caused mighty wall to be built on the East side of Babylon. I dug out a moat … I made the city of Babylon a fortress.

Nebuchadnezzar II (605 BC - 562 BC)

Striding Lion

The Assyrian Empire fell before the combined onslaughts of Babylonians and Medes in 614 and 612 B.C. In the empire's final days, Nabopolassar (r. 625–605 B.C.), who had been in Assyrian service, established a new dynasty with its capital in Babylon. During the reign of his son, Nebuchadnezzar II (r. 604–562 B.C.), the Neo-Babylonian empire reached its peak.

During this period Babylon became a city of splendor. The most important street in Babylon was the Processional Way, leading from the inner city through the Ishtar Gate to the Bit Akitu. The Ishtar Gate, built by Nebuchadnezzar II, was a glazed-brick structure decorated with figures of bulls and dragons, symbols of the weather god Adad and of Marduk. North of the gate the roadway was lined with glazed figures of striding lions. This relief of a lion, the animal associated with Ishtar, goddess of love and war, served to protect the street.