THE RECORD
What changed
Late in Hammurabi's reign, a stele set out legal cases, penalties and contracts. Its prologue and epilogue portray the king as a just protector of the weak.
EVIDENCE
What remains
The basalt stele found at Susa, now in the Louvre, and clay-tablet copies preserve the text and its scribal transmission.
WHY IT MATTERS
Why it matters
It embodies an ideal of law made visible, while its provisions reveal unequal duties and penalties by status and gender.
OPEN QUESTION
Where interpretation begins
Scholars debate whether it functioned as a comprehensive code, a collection of precedents or royal ideology; surviving court records do not always apply it literally.