Code of Law of Hammurabi


iconChapter - 12

1If a son strike his father, his hands shall be hewn off.
2If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out.
3If he break another man's bone, his bone shall be broken.
4If he put out the eye of a freed man, or break the bone of a freed man, he shall pay one gold mina.
5If he put out the eye of a man's slave, or break the bone of a man's slave, he shall pay one-half of its value.
6If a man knock out the teeth of his equal, his teeth shall be knocked out.
7If he knock out the teeth of a freed man, he shall pay one-third of a gold mina.
8If any one strike the body of a man higher in rank than he, he shall receive sixty blows with an ox-whip in public.
9If a free-born man strike the body of another free-born man or equal rank, he shall pay one gold mina.
10If a freed man strike the body of another freed man, he shall pay ten shekels in money.
11If the slave of a freed man strike the body of a freed man, his ear shall be cut off.
12If during a quarrel one man strike another and wound him, then he shall swear, "I did not injure him wittingly," and pay the physicians.
13If the man die of his wound, he shall swear similarly, and if he (the deceased) was a free-born man, he shall pay half a mina in money.
14If he was a freed man, he shall pay one-third of a mina.
15If a man strike a free-born woman so that she lose her unborn child, he shall pay ten shekels for her loss.
16If the woman die, his daughter shall be put to death.
17If a woman of the free class lose her child by a blow, he shall pay five shekels in money.
18If this woman die, he shall pay half a mina.
19If he strike the maid-servant of a man, and she lose her child, he shall pay two shekels in money.
20If this maid-servant die, he shall pay one-third of a mina.
21If a physician make a large incision with an operating knife and cure it, or if he open a tumor (over the eye) with an operating knife, and saves the eye, he shall receive ten shekels in money.
22If the patient be a freed man, he receives five shekels.
23If he be the slave of some one, his owner shall give the physician two shekels.
24If a physician make a large incision with the operating knife, and kill him, or open a tumor with the operating knife, and cut out the eye, his hands shall be cut off.
25If a physician make a large incision in the slave of a freed man, and kill him, he shall replace the slave with another slave.
26If he had opened a tumor with the operating knife, and put out his eye, he shall pay half his value.
27If a physician heal the broken bone or diseased soft part of a man, the patient shall pay the physician five shekels in money.
28If he were a freed man he shall pay three shekels.
29If he were a slave his owner shall pay the physician two shekels.
30If a veterinary surgeon perform a serious operation on an ass or an ox, and cure it, the owner shall pay the surgeon one-sixth of a shekel as a fee.
31If he perform a serious operation on an ass or ox, and kill it, he shall pay the owner one-fourth of its value.
32If a barber, without the knowledge of his master, cut the sign of a slave on a slave not to be sold, the hands of this barber shall be cut off.
33If any one deceive a barber, and have him mark a slave not for sale with the sign of a slave, he shall be put to death, and buried in his house. The barber shall swear: "I did not mark him wittingly," and shall be guiltless.
34If a builder build a house for some one and complete it, he shall give him a fee of two shekels in money for each sar of surface.
35If a builder build a house for some one, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built fall in and kill its owner, then that builder shall be put to death.
36If it kill the son of the owner the son of that builder shall be put to death.
37If it kill a slave of the owner, then he shall pay slave for slave to the owner of the house.
38If it ruin goods, he shall make compensation for all that has been ruined, and inasmuch as he did not construct properly this house which he built and it fell, he shall re-erect the house from his own means.
39If a builder build a house for some one, even though he has not yet completed it; if then the walls seem toppling, the builder must make the walls solid from his own means.
40If a shipbuilder build a boat of sixty gur for a man, he shall pay him a fee of two shekels in money.
41If a shipbuilder build a boat for some one, and do not make it tight, if during that same year that boat is sent away and suffers injury, the shipbuilder shall take the boat apart and put it together tight at his own expense. The tight boat he shall give to the boat owner.
42If a man rent his boat to a sailor, and the sailor is careless, and the boat is wrecked or goes aground, the sailor shall give the owner of the boat another boat as compensation.
43If a man hire a sailor and his boat, and provide it with corn, clothing, oil and dates, and other things of the kind needed for fitting it: if the sailor is careless, the boat is wrecked, and its contents ruined, then the sailor shall compensate for the boat which was wrecked and all in it that he ruined.
44If a sailor wreck any one's ship, but saves it, he shall pay the half of its value in money.
45If a man hire a sailor, he shall pay him six gur of corn per year.
46If a merchantman run against a ferryboat, and wreck it, the master of the ship that was wrecked shall seek justice before God; the master of the merchantman, which wrecked the ferryboat, must compensate the owner for the boat and all that he ruined.
47If any one impresses an ox for forced labor, he shall pay one-third of a mina in money.
48If any one hire oxen for a year, he shall pay four gur of corn for plow-oxen.
49As rent of herd cattle he shall pay three gur of corn to the owner.
50If any one hire an ox or an ass, and a lion kill it in the field, the loss is upon its owner.
51If any one hire oxen, and kill them by bad treatment or blows, he shall compensate the owner, oxen for oxen.
52If a man hire an ox, and he break its leg or cut the ligament of its neck, he shall compensate the owner with ox for ox.
53If any one hire an ox, and put out its eye, he shall pay the owner one-half of its value.
54If any one hire an ox, and break off a horn, or cut off its tail, or hurt its muzzle, he shall pay one-fourth of its value in money.
55If any one hire an ox, and God strike it that it die, the man who hired it shall swear by God and be considered guiltless.
56If while an ox is passing on the street (market) some one push it, and kill it, the owner can set up no claim in the suit (against the hirer).
57If an ox be a goring ox, and it shown that he is a gorer, and he do not bind his horns, or fasten the ox up, and the ox gore a free-born man and kill him, the owner shall pay one-half a mina in money.
58If he kill a man's slave, he shall pay one-third of a mina.
59If any one agree with another to tend his field, give him seed, entrust a yoke of oxen to him, and bind him to cultivate the field, if he steal the corn or plants, and take them for himself, his hands shall be hewn off.
60If he take the seed-corn for himself, and do not use the yoke of oxen, he shall compensate him for the amount of the seed-corn.
61If he sublet the man's yoke of oxen or steal the seed-corn, planting nothing in the field, he shall be convicted, and for each one hundred gan he shall pay sixty gur of corn.
62If his community will not pay for him, then he shall be placed in that field with the cattle (at work).
63If any one hire a field laborer, he shall pay him eight gur of corn per year.
64If any one hire an ox-driver, he shall pay him six gur of corn per year.
65If any one steal a water-wheel from the field, he shall pay five shekels in money to its owner.
66If any one steal a shadduf (used to draw water from the river or canal) or a plow, he shall pay three shekels in money.
67If any one hire a herdsman for cattle or sheep, he shall pay him eight gur of corn per annum.
68If any one, a cow or a sheep ...
69If he kill the cattle or sheep that were given to him, he shall compensate the owner with cattle for cattle and sheep for sheep.
70If a herdsman, to whom cattle or sheep have been entrusted for watching over, and who has received his wages as agreed upon, and is satisfied, diminish the number of the cattle or sheep, or make the increase by birth less, he shall make good the increase or profit which was lost in the terms of settlement.
71If a herdsman, to whose care cattle or sheep have been entrusted, be guilty of fraud and make false returns of the natural increase, or sell them for money, then shall he be convicted and pay the owner ten times the loss.
72If the animal be killed in the stable by God (an accident), or if a lion kill it, the herdsman shall declare his innocence before God, and the owner bears the accident in the stable.
73If the herdsman overlook something, and an accident happen in the stable, then the herdsman is at fault for the accident which he has caused in the stable, and he must compensate the owner for the cattle or sheep.
74If any one hire an ox for threshing, the amount of the hire is twenty ka of corn.
75If he hire an ass for threshing, the hire is twenty ka of corn.
76If he hire a young animal for threshing, the hire is ten ka of corn.
77If any one hire oxen, cart and driver, he shall pay one hundred and eighty ka of corn per day.
78If any one hire a cart alone, he shall pay forty ka of corn per day.
79If any one hire a day laborer, he shall pay him from the New Year until the fifth month (April to August, when days are long and the work hard) six gerahs in money per day; from the sixth month to the end of the year he shall give him five gerahs per day.
80If any one hire a skilled artizan, he shall pay as wages of the ... five gerahs, as wages of the potter five gerahs, of a tailor five gerahs, of ... gerahs, ... of a ropemaker four gerahs, of ... gerahs, of a mason ... gerahs per day.
81If any one hire a ferryboat, he shall pay three gerahs in money per day.
82If he hire a freight-boat, he shall pay two and one-half gerahs per day.
83If any one hire a ship of sixty gur, he shall pay one-sixth of a shekel in money as its hire per day.