Hammurabi, Agricultural Revolution, Zoroastrianism Hammurabi, Agriculture, Zoroastrianism Essay

Hammurabi, Agricultural Revolution, Zoroastrianism

Hammurabi, Agriculture, Zoroastrianism

The Code of Hammurabi

Justice and the law is not a new concept, though throughout the millennia, both have evolved to what is today our modern political system, namely that of the municipal courts and the branches of government involved within nations. It is clear, however, that many of the concepts and ideas that are still being used today have stemmed from a much older doctrine, one that's been imagined around 4,000 years back into our primitive past. Such is the case of the Code of Hammurabi, a doctrine carved in cuneiform around 2200 B.C. In his ancient Babylonian kingdom, Hammurabi devised a rigid class-structure that gave rise to the "series of practical laws to bring about justice (Blaise, J. 2009). The Code has outlasted Hammurabi's life, and the legacy is quite evident in modern society.

From archaeological finds, it has been seen that Hammurabi's laws sought to create a moral structure for citizens of Babylon to adhere to. Hundreds of years after Hammurabi's own life had already passed, evidence of a Babylonian proverb emerged which had been derived from the "eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth" doctrine that had been written centuries past: "If you go and take the field of an enemy, the enemy will come and take your field" (Blaise, J. 2009). The code -- a cumulative set of 282 laws -- established a society where the people were depended upon to respect one's leader, and in turn, the leader provides for the people; this mindset might even have been the start of English feudalism in 1066, where monarchy financed its vassals, who in turn swore fealty to their ruler.Even today's medicine is involved, wherein the Code of Hammurabi "set out for the first time the concept of civil and criminal liability for improper and negligent medical care" (Blaise, J. 2009). Hammurabi's code had even set forth the beginnings of modern day's governmental systems, namely the bureaucracy within society.

Agricultural Revolution

The origins of agriculture for the different civilizations in the past are disputed and have been far from simultaneous. However, while the different societies arrived at agricultural cultivation at different times, there is a similarity that ties all these societies together; namely, they all came about discovering agriculture through the same concept of gods and the divine. For instance, during the 1st century B.C., Diodorus Siculus had stated that agriculture came from Osiris and Isis, who were the first gods to "make mankind give up cannibalism…because it seemed to their advantage to refrain from their butchery of one another" (Harlan, J.R. 1992). Similarly, the goddess Demeter appeared as an explanation of agriculture in Greece; Ceres appeared for the Romans; Shen-nung the ox became the agricultural deity in China; serpentine Quetzalcoatl was Mexico's symbol; and Viracocha was Peru's deity of agriculture.

Once this agricultural revolution took place -- the first phase being called the Neolithic period -- the indications of changing social lives were evident within….....