Code of Hammurabi

If a boatman has navigated a ship for a man and has not made his work trustworthy, and in that same year that he worked that ship it has suffered an injury, the boatman shall exchange that ship or shall make it strong at his own expense and shall give a strong ship to the owner of the ship.

If a man has given his ship to a boatman, on hire, and the boatman has been careless, has grounded the ship, or has caused it to be lost, the boatman shall render ship for ship to the owner.

If a man has hired a boatman and ship, and with corn, wool, oil, dates, or whatever it be as freight, has freighted her, that boatman has been careless and grounded the ship, or has caused what is in her to be lost, the boatman shall render back the ship which he has grounded and whatever in her he has caused to be lost.

If a boatman has grounded the ship of a man and has refloated her, he shall give money to half her price.

If a man has hired a boatman, he shall give him six GUR of corn per year.

If a ship that is going forward has struck a ship at anchor and has sunk her, the owner of the ship that has been sunk whatever he has lost in his ship shall recount before God, and that of the ship going forward which sunk the ship at anchor shall render to him his ship and whatever of his was lost.

If a man has taken an ox on distraint, he shall pay one- third of a mina of silver.

If a man has hired a working ox for one year, he shall pay four GUR of corn as its hire.

If a milch cow, he shall give three GUR of corn to its owner.

If a man has hired an ox or sheep and a lion has killed it in the open field, that loss is for its owner forsooth.

If a man has hired an ox and through neglect or by blows has caused it to die, ox for ox to the owner of the ox he shall render.

If a man has hired an ox and has crushed its foot or has cut its nape, ox for ox to the owner of the ox he shall render.

If a man has hired an ox and has caused it to lose its eye, he shall pay half its price to the owner of the ox.

If a man has hired an ox, and has crushed its horn, cut off its tail, or pierced its nostrils, he shall pay a quarter of its price.

If a man has hired an ox, and God has struck it and it has died, the man who has hired the ox shall swear before God and shall go free.

If a wild bull in his charge has gored a man and caused him to die, that case has no remedy.

If the ox has pushed a man, by pushing has made known his vice, and he has not blunted his horn, has not shut up his ox, and that ox has gored a man of gentle birth and caused him to die, he shall pay half a mina of silver.

If a gentleman's servant, he shall pay one-third of a mina of silver.

If a man has hired a man to reside in his field and has furnished him seed, has entrusted him the oxen and harnessed them for cultivating the field - if that man has stolen the corn or plants, and they have been seized in his hands, one shall cut off his hands.

If he has taken the seed, worn out the oxen, from the seed which he has hoed he shall restore.

If he has hired out the oxen of the man or has stolen the corn and has not caused it to grow in the field, that man one shall put him to account and he shall measure out sixty GUR of corn per GAN of land.

If his compensation he is not able to pay, one shall remove the oxen from that field.

If a man has hired a harvester, he shall give him eight GUR of corn per year.

If a man has hired an ox-driver, he shall give him six GUR of corn per year.

If a man has stolen a watering machine from the meadow, he shall give five shekels of silver to the owner of the watering machine.

If he has stolen a watering bucket or a harrow, he shall pay three shekels of silver.

If a man has hired a herdsman for the cows or a shepherd for the sheep, he shall give him eight GUR of corn per annum.

If a man, ox, or sheep to [this section is defaced].

If he has caused an ox or sheep which was given him to be lost, ox for ox, sheep for sheep, he shall render to their owner.

If a herdsman who has had cows or sheep given him to shepherd, has received his hire, whatever was agreed, and his heart was contented, has diminished the cows, diminished the sheep, lessened the offspring, he shall give offspring and produce according to the tenour of his bonds.

If a shepherd to whom cows and sheep have been given him to breed, has falsified and changed their price, or has sold them, one shall put him to account, and he shall render cows and sheep to their owner tenfold what he has stolen.

If in a sheepfold a stroke of God has taken place or a lion has killed, the shepherd shall purge himself before God, and the accident to the fold the owner of the fold shall face it.

If a shepherd has been careless and in a sheepfold caused a loss to take place, the shepherd shall make good the fault of the loss which he has caused to be in the fold and shall pay cows or sheep and shall give to their owner.

If a man has hired an ox, for threshing, twenty KA of corn is its hire.

If he has hired an ass, for threshing, ten KA of corn is its hire.

If he has hired a calf (goat?), for threshing, one KA of corn is its hire.

If a man has hired oxen, a wagon, and its driver, he shall give one hundred and eighty KA of corn per diem.

If a man has hired a wagon by itself, he shall give forty KA of corn per diem.

If a man has hired a labourer, from the beginning of the year till the fifth month, he shall give six SE of silver per diem; from the sixth month to the end of the year, he shall give five SE of silver per diem.

If a man shall hire an artisan - (a) the hire of a . . . five SE of silver (b) the hire of a brickmaker five SE of silver (c) the hire of a tailor . five SE of silver (d) the hire of a stone-cutter . SE of silver (e) the hire of a . . . SE of silver (f) the hire of a . . . SE of silver (g) the hire of a carpenter four SE of silver (h) the hire of a . . . four SE of silver (i) the hire of a . . . SE of silver (j) the hire of a builder. . . SE of silver per diem he shall give.

If a man has hired a (boat?) per diem, her hire is three SE of silver.

If a man has hired a fast ship, he shall give two and a half SE of silver per diem as her hire.

If a man has hired a ship of sixty GUR, he shall give one- sixth of a shekel of silver per diem as her hire.

If a man has bought a manservant or a maidservant, and he has not fulfilled his month and the bennu sickness has fallen upon him, he shall return him to the seller, and the buyer shall take the money he paid.

If a man has bought a manservant or a maidservant and has a complaint, his seller shall answer the complaint.

If a man has bought in a foreign land the manservant or the maidservant of a man, when he has come into the land, and the owner of the manservant or the maidservant has recognised his manservant or his maidservant, if the manservant or maidservant are natives without price he shall grant them their freedom.

If they are natives of another land the buyer shall tell out before God the money he paid, and the owner of the manservant or the maidservant shall give to the merchant the money he paid, and shall recover his manservant or his maidservant.

If a slave has said to his master 'Thou art not my master,' as his slave one shall put him to account and his master shall cut off his ear. * * * * * The judgements of righteousness which Hammurabi the mighty king confirmed and caused the land to take a sure guidance and a gracious rule. The following three sections, which are known to belong to the Code from copies made for an Assyrian king in the seventh century B.C., are given here for the sake of completeness. They obviously come within the space once occupied by the five erased columns. section X. If a man has taken money from a merchant and has given a plantation of dates to the merchant, has said to him, 'The dates that are in my plantation take for thy money,' that merchant shall not agree, the dates that are in the plantation the owner of the plantation shall take, and he shall answer to the merchant for the money and its interests according to the tenour of his bond. The dates that are over, which are in the plantation, the owner of the plantation shall take forsooth. section Y. . . . the man dwelling (in the house) has given to the owner (of the house) the money of its rent in full for the year, the owner of the house has ordered the dweller to go out when his days are not full, the owner of the house, because he has ordered the dweller to leave when his days are not full, (shall give) of the money which the dweller gave him. . . . section Z. If a man has to pay, in money or corn, but has not money or corn to pay with, but has goods, whatever is in his hands, before witnesses, according to what he has brought, he shall give to his merchant. The merchant shall not object, he shall receive it.