Position in chronology
Code of Hammurabi (stele)
Translation · reference
Scholar-verifiedIf a man has destroyed the eye of another man — they shall destroy his eye.
Source: Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor
Translation · AI engine
read from photoIf a man of the highest free class has destroyed the eye of a man of equal standing — they shall destroy his eye.
4 uncertain terms ↓
- awīlum — Context-dependent social designation: in OB law codes specifically denotes a free man of the highest social rank, not a generic male person; some translators render it simply as 'man' or 'citizen,' but the tripartite social hierarchy (awīlum / muškēnum / wardum) in the Code supports the more restricted sense.
- uḫtappid — Gt-stem preterite of ḫapādum ('to blind / gouge out'); the Gt stem carries a nuance of intentionality or reciprocal action. Some earlier translations rendered this as a simple preterite without the intensifying force; the exact shade of meaning (deliberate act vs. reflexive nuance) is debated.
- uḫappadū — Third-person plural jussive/passive: 'they shall gouge out (his eye).' The impersonal plural is the standard OB legal idiom for a state-imposed penalty; it does not name a specific agent and functions effectively as a passive ('his eye shall be gouged out').
- īnšu — Literally 'his eye' — the pronominal suffix -šu refers back to the perpetrator (awīlum subject), making the talion grammatically explicit: it is the offender's own eye that is to be destroyed.
Reasoning ↓
Visually, the photograph shows the iconic black diorite stele of Hammurabi, currently in the Louvre (Sb 8). The upper register clearly depicts the bas-relief of Hammurabi standing before the enthroned sun-god Shamash, who extends the rod-and-ring symbols of divine authority — consistent with established iconographic descriptions of this monument. The body of the stele below is densely covered with cuneiform columns, visible in the photo as fine, closely spaced wedge impressions, though individual signs cannot be resolved at this image resolution; no specific line of the transliteration can be confirmed or refuted from the photo alone. The transliteration corresponds to the lex talionis principle encoded in §196 of the Code of Hammurabi (Roth, 'Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor,' 2nd ed., 1997, p. 121): 'šumma awīlum īn awīlim uḫtappid — īnšu uḫappadū.' The Gt-stem preterite uḫtappid implies intentional or reflexive action ('has deliberately put out'), and the jussive plural uḫappadū enacts the talion. The choice to render awīlum as 'man of the highest free class' follows the project glossary and scholarly consensus distinguishing awīlum from muškēnum (a lower free class) and wardum (slave) in OB legal texts.
Generated by claude-sonnet-4-6 · prompt 2026-05-11/v2 · May 11, 2026 · 2499 in / 775 out tokens
Why it matters
Not the first law code, but the most complete and the most famous. Inscribed on a black diorite stele over two meters tall, displayed in a public place — law made visible, law made monumental.
Transliteration
šumma awīlum īn awīlim uḫtappid — īnšu uḫappadū
Scholarly note
The famous lex talionis — 'eye for an eye'. But the code is far more nuanced: penalties depend on the social class of victim and offender, and many provisions deal with commercial law, marriage, and medical malpractice.
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, photo by Rama, via Wikimedia Commons. source
Translation excerpted from Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor.
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