Hammurabi of Babylon
c. 1810-1750 BC · Ancient Near East · Prominent
Hammurabi was a Babylonian king who unified much of Mesopotamia and issued the fullest law collection to survive from the ancient Near East, carved on a black stone pillar now in the Louvre. He set out 282 rulings, case by case, and rested the whole collection on a claim about power: the gods put him on the throne to make justice hold, so that the strong could not oppress the weak.
Signature
The position Hammurabi is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Polity
- leans Illiberalism
- Law
- Customary Law / Divine Law
Positions on the 5 axes the sources answer
- The Divine
- leans Describable (25 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Meaning
- leans Inherent (75 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Polity
- leans Illiberalism (25 on a 0–100 scale from Illiberalism to Liberalism)
- Ethics
- leans Means (75 on a 0–100 scale from Ends to Means)
- Allegiance
- leans Local (25 on a 0–100 scale from Local to Global)
15 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Hammurabi refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Henotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Autocracy / Clerical Theocracy
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Justice
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Moral Realism
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Knowledge
- Grounded in God / Tradition
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Divine Command
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Divine Providence
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Theogonic Origin
What is the origin of reality? - Authority
- Divine Revelation / Hereditary
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Language
- Sacred Speech
What is the fundamental nature of language? - Law
- Customary Law / Divine Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Primary Bond
- Nation / The Divine
What is your primary bond and loyalty?