(Texts: All Artifacts, Color Coding, & Writings in Bold Type With Italics Inside Parenthesis, are Added by Editor R. Brown, not the Authors, Translators, or Publishers!)

(gods in blue …mixed-breed demigods in teal…)

             (Hammurabi & Law Code of Hammurabi artifact)

HAMMURABI, MIGHTY KING, KING OF BABYLON,

KING OF THE FOUR QUARTERS OF THE WORLD,

THE BUILDER OF THE TEMPLE EZI-KALAM-MA

(‘HOUSE – THE LIFE OF THE LAND’),

TEMPLE OF THE GODDESS INNANA IN ZABALA

MS in Old Babylonian on clay, Zabala, Babylonia, 1792-1750 BC, 1 brick, 13x29x9 cm, originally ca. 33x29x9 cm, 9 columns, (7×16 cm) in cuneiform script.

Context: There are 10 bricks extant apart from MS 1876/1-2, 9 in the Iraq Museum and 1, former MS 1876/3, now in British Museum (gift from The Schøyen Collection). MS 3028 is a royal inscription on black stone from the shoulder of a statue.

Commentary: Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC), the great king who created the Old Babylonian empire, is today mostly remembered for his famous law code. But he also built a series of great temples like the present one in Zabala. Towards the end of his reign, Hammurabi ordered his law code to be carved on stele which were placed in the temples bearing witness that the king had performed his important function of ‘king of justice’ satisfactorily. The famous stele now in the Louvre, was originally erected in the Sippar temple. The 12 surviving bricks are the only witnesses of the Zabala temple, its law code stele is lost.