Okay here goes! As promised, a thread to show you how to translate, from the original Babylonian cuneiform, a law from the Code of Hammurabi

We’re going to translate together as much as possible, so you can see the entire process

First, for those that don’t know, King Ḫammurabi, sometimes you will see Ḫammurapi or even 'Ammurapi, was the sixth and most famous Amorite king of Babylon, who ruled from ~1792-1750 BCE (almost 3,800 years ago).

(The Amorites a neighboring semitic speaking people to Babylon)

Likely towards the end of his reign, Ḫammurabi had inscribed a long code of laws onto a large stele (a diorite stone slab) about his view of justice, divinely revealed to him from the god Šamaš, that today are known as the largest known text of Old Babylonian Akkadian

The law I have for you today is found on a paper copy of the Stele drawn by E. Bergmann, and is Law §129

Before we start, some quick things. Every law in the Codex Hammurabi is written in two parts: a “protasis” or the beginning of a conditional statement, often with the words “If a man...” and the “apodosis,” or consequence.

(also, each color will be abbreviated B for “blue” etc)

Let’s not waste time and jump into the first line.

B - the first sign here is šum followed by ma, giving us šum-ma

P - three signs, here aš-ša-, and the third sign causes trouble as it can be read at/ad/aṭ, for now we can use “at” for aš-ša-at

G - more trouble! the first sign is almost exclusively read as “a,” but the next sign can be read as wa/we/wi/wu/pi/pe and the third as ši/lim/or the logogram IGI meaning “eye”

What to do? There is an incredibly common word, awīlum or “man,” that saves us here, making a-wi-lim

So, this gives us:

šum-ma aš-ša-at a-wi-lim

šumma means “if,” and there exists a word, aššatum, meaning “wife,” (hebrew speakers might recognize אשׁה) that could make sense here as aššat awīlim, a possessive construction meaning “wife of a man”

“if the wife of a man...”

B - the first sign here is damaged, but it can be made out to be a sign that can read ed/et/eṭ/id/it/iṭ. How do we even start to figure that out?

Well the second sign is “ti,” and two consonants against each other suggests that other consonant must be “t”, so e/it-ti

P - the first sign can be read zi/si/ṣi, the second as ka, the third as re/ri, and the last as em/im

more confusion , it could be si-ka-ri-im, zi-ka-re-em, etc etc

for now, we can use zi-ka-ri-im as my gut tells me that this word might be zikarum, another word for “man”

G - this last word can only be read as ša-ni-im

thus: e/it-ti zi-ka-ri-im ša-ni-im

there is a word, itti, meaning “with,” and a word šanûm meaning “second, other” which could yield:

itti zikarim šanîm “with another man”

B - this is a ridiculously common word, i-na or ina meaning “in”

P - this can be read i-tu-ši or i-tu-lim

G - the first two signs can be read it-ta only, but the next signs cause trouble

the third can be as/aṣ/az, and the fourth can be be/pe/pi/bad/bat/baṭ/pat.... and more

How can we solve this puzzle to find some meaning?

Well, this is where your knowledge of Akkadian grammar comes into play. Here, we can expect a verb, meaning we need to look for a root of usually 3 consonants.

There is a common verb, made of Ṣ B T, meaning “to seize”

if we read this with the assumption of Ṣ B T, we get it-ta-aṣ-bat or ittaṣbat

What might ittaṣbat mean? Let’s split it apart:

i-tt-ṢB-a-T

“-ṢB-a-T” forms the core of the verb, so we can leave it out for now, and focus on the “itta” portion

the i- prefix tells us this verb is in the 3rd person, but the doubled “tt” suggests that there is a hidden “n” that disappeared between the i and -ta, thus i-n-ta

If that’s the case, then the “n” means this verb is passive (to be seized instead of to seize), -ta = past tense

We are left with:

i-na i-tu-lim it-ta-aṣ-bat

or ina itūlim ittaṣbat

“lying (in bed) (she) is caught/seized”

So, so far, we have:

šumma aššat awīlim itti zikarim šanîm ina itūlim ittaṣbat

“If the wife of a man is caught lying with another man...”

this is our protasis!

& for the sake of brevity from now on, I will be showing you only sign readings I have already figured out for you

B - here we have a long verb, with limited sign damage:

i-ka-su-šu-nu-ti-ma

which we might normalize in Akkadian as:

ikassûšunūti-ma from the verb “kasûm” meaning “to bind”

we can break about this verb as:

ikassû = “they will bind”

šunûti = “them” thus:

“they will bind them” (the ‘they’ here, being community members/enforcers)

-ma = “and”

B - a-na

P - me-e

ana mê - “in the water”

G - i-na-ad-du-u-šu-nu-ti

inaddûšunūti from the verb nadûm “to throw” conjugated exactly like the verb kasûm before, any ideas what it might mean?

If you said “they will throw them” you are right!

Now we have the entire law

šumma aššat awīlim itti zikarim šanîm ina itūlim ittaṣbat ikassûšunūtī-ma ana mê inaddûšunūti

“If the wife of a man is caught lying with another man, they will bind them and throw them in water”

END

(it should be mentioned as well, if the man appeals to the king, he can spare his wife from death by drowning)

just now saw it should be šunūti not šunûti :)