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Iraq’s History
to 1990
I
n 1901 a group of French archaeologists traveled to
Mesopotamia to search for the remains of an ancient civiliza-
tion. As the archaeologists dug into the sun-baked earth, they
hit a large object. Digging carefully, they uncovered an eight-foot-
long block of black basalt. Across the face of the huge stone were
words carved in a language unfamiliar to the archaeologists. It was
evidence of the powerful kingdom they had sought.
When the writings on the basalt slab were translated, they were
found to be the laws of Hammurabi, a great ruler of Babylon who
had lived around 1750
BCE
. The Code of Hammurabi, as the laws
are called, is one of the earliest written legal systems; it gives mod-
ern students valuable insight into the structure of ancient
Mesopotamian society.
By the time of Hammurabi, civilization in Mesopotamia had
already existed for some two and a half millennia. Mesopotamia is
often called the “cradle of civilization” because archaeologists
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Mesopotamia produced the world’s earliest known civilization, Sumer, as well as the oldest
known system of writing, cuneiform. The clay tablet shown here, which is covered with
cuneiform writing, is important for another reason: it is the prologue to the Code of
Hammurabi, one of the earliest legal codes, which dates to the 18th century
B
.
C
.