The Oldest Code of Laws in the World by King of Babylonia Hammurabi (ebook reader for pc and android .txt) 📕

§ 9.  If a man who has lost something of his, something of his that is lost has been seized in the hand of a man, the man in whose hand the lost thing has been seized has said, ‘A giver gave it me,’ or ‘I bought it before witnesses,’ and the owner of the thing that is lost has said, ‘Verily, I will bring witnesses that know my lost property,’ the buyer has brought the giver who gave it him and the witnesses before whom he bought it, and the owner of the lost property has brought the witnesses who know his lost property, the judge shall see their depositions, the witnesses before whom the purchase was made and the witnesses knowing the lost property shall say out before God what they know; and if the giver has acted the thief he shall be put to death, the owner of the lost property shall take his lost property, the buyer shall take the money he paid from the house of the giver.

§ 10.  If the buyer has not brought the giver who gave it him and the witnesses before whom he bought, and the owner of the lost property has brought the witnesses knowing his lost property, the buyer has acted the thief, he shall be put to death; the owner of the lost property shall take his lost property.

§ 11.  If the owner of the lost property has not brought witnesses knowing his lost property, he has lied, he has stirred up strife, he shall be put to death.

§ 12.  If the giver has betaken himself to his fate, the buyer shall take from the house of the giver fivefold as the penalty of that case.

§ 13.  If that man has not his witnesses near, the judge shall set him a fixed time, up to six months, and if within six months he has not driven in his witnesses, that man has lied, he himself shall bear the blame of that case.

§ 14.  If a man has stolen the son of a freeman, he shall be put to death.

§ 15.  If a man has caused either a palace slave or palace maid, or a slave of a poor man or a poor man’s maid, to go out of the gate, he shall be put to death.

§ 16.  If a man has harboured in his house a manservant or a maidservant, fugitive from the palace, or a poor man, and has not produced them at the demand of the commandant, the owner of that house shall be put to death.

§ 17.  If a man has captured either a manservant or a maidservant, a fugitive, in the open country and has driven him back to his master, the owner of the slave shall pay him two shekels of silver.

§ 18.  If that slave will not name his owner he shall drive him to the palace, and one shall enquire into his past, and cause him to return to his owner.

§ 19.  If he confine that slave in his house, and afterwards the slave has been seized in his hand, that man shall be put to death.

§ 20.  If the slave has fled from the hand of his captor, that man shall swear by the name of God, to the owner of the slave, and shall go free.

§ 21.  If a man has broken into a house, one shall kill him before the breach and bury him in it (?).

§ 22.  If a man has carried on brigandage, and has been captured, that man shall be put to death.

§ 23.  If the brigand has not been caught, the man who has been despoiled shall recount before God what he has lost, and the city and governor in whose land and district the brigandage took place shall render back to him whatever of his was lost.

§ 24.  If it was a life, the city and governor shall pay one mina of silver to his people.

§ 25.  If in a man’s house a fire has been kindled, and a man who has come to extinguish the fire has lifted up his eyes to the property of the owner of the house, and has taken the property of the owner of the house, that man shall be thrown into that fire.

§ 26.  If either a ganger or a constable, whose going on an errand of the king has been ordered, goes not, or hires a hireling and sends him in place of himself, that ganger or constable shall be put to death; his hireling shall take to himself his house.

§ 27.  If a ganger or a constable, who is diverted to the fortresses of the king, and after him one has given his field and his garden to another, and he has carried on his business, if he returns and regains his city, one shall return to him his field and his garden, and he shall carry on his business himself.

§ 28.  If a ganger or a constable who is diverted to the fortresses of the king, his son be able to carry on the business, one shall give him field and garden and he shall carry on his father’s business.

§ 29.  If his son is young and is not able to carry on his father’s business, one-third of the field and garden shall be given to his mother, and his mother shall rear him.

§ 30.  If a ganger or a constable has left alone his field, or his garden, or his house, from the beginning of his business, and has caused it to be waste, a second after him has taken his field, his garden, or his house, and has gone about his business for three years, if he returns and regains his city, and would cultivate his field, his garden, and his house, one shall not give them to him; he who has taken them and carried on his business shall carry it on.

§ 31.  If it is one year only and he had let it go waste, and he shall return, one shall give his field, his garden, and his house, and he shall carry on his business.

§ 32.  If a ganger or a constable who is diverted on an errand of the king’s, a merchant has ransomed him and caused him to regain his city, if in his house there is means for his ransom, he shall ransom his own self; if in his house there is no means for his ransom, he shall be ransomed from the temple of his city; if in the temple of his city there is not means for his ransom, the palace shall ransom him.  His field, his garden, and his house shall not be given for his ransom.

§ 33.  If either a governor or a magistrate has taken to himself the men of the levy, or has accepted and sent on the king’s errand a hired substitute, that governor or magistrate shall be put to death.

§ 34.  If either a governor or a magistrate has taken to himself the property of a ganger, has plundered a ganger, has given a ganger to hire, has stolen from a ganger in a judgement by high-handedness, has taken to himself the gift the king has given the ganger, that governor or magistrate shall be put to death.

§ 35.  If a man has bought the cattle or sheep which the king has given to the ganger from the hand of the ganger, he shall be deprived of his money.

§ 36.  The field, garden, and house of a ganger, or constable, or a tributary, he shall not give for money.

§ 37.  If a man has bought the field, garden, or house of a ganger, a constable, or a tributary, his tablet shall be broken and he shall be deprived of his money.  The field, garden, or house he shall return to its owner.

§ 38.  The ganger, constable, or tributary shall not write off to his wife, or his daughter, from the field, garden, or house of his business, and he shall not assign it for his debt.

§ 39.  From the field, garden, and house which he has bought and acquired, he may write off to his wife or his daughter and give for his debt.

§ 40.  A votary, merchant, or foreign sojourner may sell his field, his garden, or his house; the buyer shall carry on the business of the field, garden, or house which he has bought.

§ 41.  If a man has bartered for the field, garden, or house of a ganger, constable, or tributary, and has given exchanges, the ganger, constable, or tributary shall return to his field, garden, or house, and shall keep the exchanges given him.

§ 42.  If a man has taken a field to cultivate and has not caused the corn to grow in the field, and has not done the entrusted work on the field, one shall put him to account and he shall give corn like its neighbour.

§ 43.  If he has not cultivated the field and has left it to itself, he shall give corn like its neighbour to the owner of the field, and the field he left he shall break up with hoes and shall harrow it and return to the owner of the field.

§ 44.  If a man has taken on hire an unreclaimed field for three years to open out, and has left it aside, has not opened the field, in the fourth year he shall break it up with hoes, he shall hoe it, and harrow it, and return to the owner of the field, and he shall measure out ten gur of corn per gan.

§ 45.  If a man has given his field for produce to a cultivator, and has received the produce of his field, and afterwards a thunderstorm has ravaged the field or carried away the produce, the loss is the cultivator’s.

§ 46.  If he has not received the produce of his field, and has given the field either for one-half or for one-third, the corn that is in the field the cultivator and the owner of the field shall share according to the tenour of their contract.

§ 47.  If the cultivator, because in the former year he did not set up his dwelling, has assigned the field to cultivation, the owner of the field shall not condemn the cultivator; his field has been cultivated, and at harvest time he shall take corn according to his bonds.

§ 48.  If a man has a debt upon him and a thunderstorm ravaged his field or carried away the produce, or the corn has not grown through lack of water, in that year he shall not return corn to the creditor, he shall alter his tablet and he shall not give interest for that year.

§ 49.  If a man has taken money from a merchant and has given to the merchant a field planted with corn or sesame, and said to him, ‘Cultivate the field, reap and take for thyself the corn and sesame which there is,’ if the cultivator causes to grow corn or sesame in the field, at the