Hebrew University has announced today (Monday, July 26, 2010) the discovery of a law code written on fragments of cuneiform tablets dating to the 17th or 18th century BC.
The code, which parallels portions of the famous Code of Hammurabi, was found on fragments discovered during Hebrew University of Jerusalem archaeological excavations this summer at Tel Hazor in northern Israel.
The code was written in Akkadian and refers to issues of personal injury law relating to slaves and masters similar to the famous Babylonian Hammurabi Code of the 18th century BC. Hammurabi’s Code, a set of ancient laws, created in 1790 BC in ancient Babylon and enacted by the sixth Babylonian king, Hammurabi, consists of 282 laws.
In the Hazor code, the laws also reflect Biblical principles such as “a tooth for tooth,” the researchers said. Prof. Wayne Horowitz of the Hebrew University Institute of Archaeology said that so far, words such as “master,” “slave,” and possibly the word for “tooth,” have been deciphered.
