Hammurabi's Code
Around 1754 BCE, King Hammurabi of Babylon had about 282 laws carved into a tall pillar of black stone, called a stele. It was set up in public, where people could see the laws.
The laws covered many parts of daily life: trade, wages, borrowing, farming, family life and crime. At the top of the stele, Hammurabi is shown standing before Shamash, the Babylonian god of justice, to show that his laws had the gods' approval.
Many punishments followed the idea of 'an eye for an eye': the punishment matched the harm done. But the laws did not treat everyone the same. The penalty often depended on whether a person was a noble, a free commoner or enslaved.
Hammurabi's code was not the first written set of laws, but it is one of the most complete to survive. The original stele is now in a museum in Paris.