Two kings who wrote justice in stone — 300 years apart, read for 4,000 years.
Founder of Ur III after Gutians expelled. Built the great ziggurat of Ur (30 m, bitumen mortar, still standing), canals, temples. His code — oldest surviving, on tablets not stele — has prologue (“I established justice”) and fines not mutilation: 30 shekels for a broken bone, 10 for a tooth. Killed in battle; son Shulgi deified him (WHE, Ur-Nammu).
Sixth Amorite king of Babylon; took Larsa, Mari, Eshnunna — all Mesopotamia. Carved 282 laws on 2.25 m black diorite: “If a builderʼs house falls and kills the ownerʼs son, the builderʼs son shall die.” Classed justice (noble/commoner/slave), wages, divorce, surgeonsʼ fees. Stele set in Babylonʼs Marduk temple; looted to Susa 1158 BC; found 1901, now Louvre (WHE, Hammurabi).
Three stages, triple stair, blue-glazed shrine. Woolley excavated 1920s; Saddam refaced; Americans guarded 2003. Oldest monumental building still climbable.
French dig at Susa finds broken diorite with Hammurabi facing Shamash sun-god. Deciphered in months — “eye for eye” matches Moses. Proves law 300 years before Bible.
https://www.worldhistory.org/Hammurabi/https://www.louvre.fr/To make justice appear in the land, to destroy the wicked.— Hammurabi prologue