Code of Hammurabi

Side view of the stele "fingertip".

The Code of Hammurabi is a well-preserved Babylonian law code of ancient Iraq, formerly Mesopotamia, dating back to about 1772 BC. It is one of the oldest deciphered writings of significant length in the world. The sixth Babylonian king, Hammurabi, enacted the code, and partial copies exist on a human-sized stone stele and various clay tablets. The Code consists of 282 laws, with scaled punishments, adjusting "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" (lex talionis) as graded depending on social status, of slave versus free man.^[2]

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code of Hammurabi