Oct 21st, 2025 @ justine's web page

Hammurabi Currency Converter

The Code of Hammurabi (as translated by L. W. King) is a Babylonian legal text composed during 1755–1750 BC. It is the longest, best-organized, and best-preserved legal text from the ancient Near East. This page includes the subset of Babylonian laws that mention money, translated into modern U.S. Dollar amounts. Ask yourself what price gold and silver would need to be for these laws to make the most sense.

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Babylonian Laws Mentioning Money

  1. If any one find runaway male or female slaves in the open country and bring them to their masters, the master of the slaves shall pay him two shekels of silver.
  2. If persons are stolen, then shall the community and . . . pay one mina of silver to their relatives.
  3. If any man, without the knowledge of the owner of a garden, fell a tree in a garden he shall pay half a mina in money.
  4. If a man have no claim on another for corn and money, and try to demand it by force, he shall pay one-third of a mina of silver in every case.
  5. If the prisoner die in prison from blows or maltreatment, the master of the prisoner shall convict the merchant before the judge. If he was a free-born man, the son of the merchant shall be put to death; if it was a slave, he shall pay one-third of a mina of gold, and all that the master of the prisoner gave he shall forfeit.
  6. If a man wishes to separate from his wife who has borne him no children, he shall give her the amount of her purchase money and the dowry which she brought from her father's house, and let her go.
  7. If there was no purchase price he shall give her one mina of gold as a gift of release.
  8. If he be a freed man he shall give her one-third of a mina of gold.
  9. If a man betroth a girl to his son, but his son has not known her, and if then he defile her, he shall pay her half a gold mina, and compensate her for all that she brought out of her father's house. She may marry the man of her heart.
  10. If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out.
  11. If he break another man's bone, his bone shall be broken.
  12. If he put out the eye of a freed man, or break the bone of a freed man, he shall pay one gold mina.
  13. If he put out the eye of a man's slave, or break the bone of a man's slave, he shall pay one-half of its value.
  14. If a man knock out the teeth of his equal, his teeth shall be knocked out.
  15. If he knock out the teeth of a freed man, he shall pay one-third of a gold mina.
  16. If any one strike the body of a man higher in rank than he, he shall receive sixty blows with an ox-whip in public.
  17. If a free-born man strike the body of another free-born man or equal rank, he shall pay one gold mina.
  18. If a freed man strike the body of another freed man, he shall pay ten shekels in money.
  19. If the slave of a freed man strike the body of a freed man, his ear shall be cut off.
  20. If during a quarrel one man strike another and wound him, then he shall swear, "I did not injure him wittingly," and pay the physicians.
  21. If the man die of his wound, he shall swear similarly, and if he (the deceased) was a free-born man, he shall pay half a mina in money.
  22. If he was a freed man, he shall pay one-third of a mina.
  23. If a man strike a free-born woman so that she lose her unborn child, he shall pay ten shekels for her loss.
  24. If the woman die, his daughter shall be put to death.
  25. If a woman of the free class lose her child by a blow, he shall pay five shekels in money.
  26. If this woman die, he shall pay half a mina.
  27. If he strike the maid-servant of a man, and she lose her child, he shall pay two shekels in money.
  28. If this maid-servant die, he shall pay one-third of a mina.
  29. If a physician make a large incision with an operating knife and cure it, or if he open a tumor (over the eye) with an operating knife, and saves the eye, he shall receive ten shekels in money.
  30. If the patient be a freed man, he receives five shekels.
  31. If he be the slave of some one, his owner shall give the physician two shekels.
  32. If a physician heal the broken bone or diseased soft part of a man, the patient shall pay the physician five shekels in money.
  33. If he were a freed man he shall pay three shekels.
  34. If he were a slave his owner shall pay the physician two shekels.
  35. If a veterinary surgeon perform a serious operation on an ass or an ox, and cure it, the owner shall pay the surgeon one-sixth of a shekel as a fee.
  36. If a builder build a house for some one and complete it, he shall give him a fee of two shekels in money for each sar of surface.
  37. If a shipbuilder build a boat of sixty gur for a man, he shall pay him a fee of two shekels in money.
  38. If any one impresses an ox for forced labor, he shall pay one-third of a mina in money.
  39. If an ox be a goring ox, and it shown that he is a gorer, and he do not bind his horns, or fasten the ox up, and the ox gore a free-born man and kill him, the owner shall pay one-half a mina in money.
  40. If he kill a man's slave, he shall pay one-third of a mina.
  41. If any one steal a water-wheel from the field, he shall pay five shekels in money to its owner.
  42. If any one steal a shadduf (used to draw water from the river or canal) or a plow, he shall pay three shekels in money.
  43. If any one hire a ship of sixty gur, he shall pay one-sixth of a shekel in money as its hire per day.