The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface.
• Introduction.
• Transliteration and Translation
• Prologue.
• Transliteration.
• Translation.
• The Code of Ḫammurabi.
• Transliteration.
• Translation.
• Epilogue - Transliteration.
• Epilogue - Translation.
• Proper Names and Glossary

ḪAMMURABI RECEIVING THE CODE FROM THE SUN GOD

TO MY FRIEND AND FORMER COLLEAGUE FRANKLIN P. MALL, M.D. DIRECTOR OF THE ANATOMICAL INSTITUTE OF THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY

PREFACE.

In January, 1903, I planned to give a transliteration and a translation of the Code of Ḫammurabi in the July or October number of The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures. It soon became evident that it would be necessary to make a careful study of the Text of the Code as published in photographic reproduction by Pater Scheil in his excellent commentary on the Code. This study led to the autographing of the Text so as to make it available to students. Later, in consultation with my brother, President William Rainey Harper, it was decided to make the plan more complete and to publish the results of our studies in two volumes, the first to contain the Autographed Text, Transliteration, Translation, Index of Subjects, Lists of Proper Names, Signs, Numerals, Mistakes and Erasures; the second to discuss the Code in its connection with the Mosaic Code.

A Transliteration and Translation were made before August first, 1903. The Autographed Text was published in the October number (1903) of AJSL. The Lists of Signs, Numerals, Mistakes and Erasures were made ready in October and the first week of November and were printed in the January number (1904) of AJSL. Since August few changes have been made in the Translation. The Transliteration, however, has undergone many minor changes. Both were in final proofs when I received Müller’s Die Gesetze Hammurabis on December twenty-ninth, 1903, and Kohler and Peiser’s Hammurabi’s Gesetz on January twelfth, 1904. I have accepted one reading from Müller in § 47, and I have added from Kohler-Peiser in a footnote their transliteration of the difficult passage in the Epilogue, 41, 103–104. I have made good use of the excellent translations of Winckler, and of my friend, Rev. C. H. W. Johns, of Queens College, Cambridge. The latter also sent me some of his unpublished notes, which have been helpful in places. The scholarly monographs of J. Jeremias and Oettli have been of service to me.

I am under obligations to Professor Christopher Johnston, of Johns Hopkins University, for several suggestions as to the translation, a typewritten copy of which he kindly read; to my colleague in the University, Professor Ira Maurice Price, for reading proofs of the first forty plates of the Autographed Text; and to my pupil, Mr. R. B. McSwain, who has rendered me valuable assistance in many ways. I am specially indebted to my pupil, Mr. A. H. Godbey, Fellow in Semitics in the University of Chicago, for autographing under my direction the Text and Lists and for the preparation of the Index of Subjects; and to Dr. William Muss-Arnolt for reading a proof of the Transliteration, Translation, and Glossary.

The Tables of Money and Measures in the Index are based on the article, “Babylonia,” in Hastings’ Biblical Dictionary.

It is hoped that Part II will appear in September or October, 1904.

To my friend and former colleague in the University of Chicago, Professor Franklin P. Mall, M.D., Director of the Anatomical Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University, I have the honor to dedicate this volume.

Robert Francis Harper.

• Haskell Oriental Museum,
• The University of Chicago,

February the first, 1904.