A clay plaque from the time of Hammurabi’s Babylon, of a king or god carrying a mace
Molded plaque: king or a god carrying a mace, ca. 2000–1700 BCE
Marked Babylon

SubjectIn outline · lessons being written

Hammurabi’s Babylon

Babylon rose to rule southern Mesopotamia under Hammurabi, about 1792 to 1750 BC, who had nearly three hundred laws carved on a stone pillar for all to see.

Date
About 1894 to 1595 BCIV · First cities and the Bronze Age
Place
Babylon · Mari · SipparThe Middle East
Laid out as
A cityOne city, district by district, from its centre outwards.
Lessons
5 planned, none written yet

The lessons we plan

Titles may change as they are written

  1. IA small town becomes a capital
  2. IIHammurabi’s laws
  3. IIIAn eye for an eye?
  4. IVLetters of a king
  5. VMerchants and contracts

Still to come

The people and objects these lessons will cover

People

  • Hammurabi
  • Zimri-Lim of Mari

Objects

  • The stele of Hammurabi
  • Mari letters

Where it sits

All of human history, era by era

Early human ancestryOur species and the Old Stone AgeFarming and the New Stone AgeFirst cities and the Bronze AgeThe Iron Age and growing statesThe classical worldAfter the empiresMedieval networks and empiresOceans crossedRevolutions and the first factoriesIndustry, empire and world warThe world since 1945

1894 BC to 1595 BC. Each era is drawn the same width, so the earliest are squeezed: era II alone is over 300,000 years.

Nearby in time and place

This page is an outline. The summary above is a starting point; each lesson, when it is written, will give its sources, its pictures and where historians disagree. Spotted a mistake?