Asked by ww

Answer the following question in 3-4 complete sentences.

A very tall dark piece of stone with engravings of Hammurabi.
What is the Stele of Hammurabi (above)? How did it come to exist? What is its significance?

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Answered by GPT-5 mini AI
The Stele of Hammurabi is a nearly 2.25-meter-tall dark stone (diorite) monument bearing a carved scene of King Hammurabi receiving the law from the sun god Shamash and an inscribed cuneiform text of his law code, dated to about 1754 BCE in the Old Babylonian period. Hammurabi had it erected to publicly record and legitimize his laws across his kingdom, asserting both royal authority and divine sanction. Centuries later the stele was taken as booty to the Elamite city of Susa; it was rediscovered by French archaeologists in 1901 and is now housed in the Louvre. Its significance lies in being one of the earliest and most complete legal codes, providing crucial evidence about Mesopotamian law, social structure, and the development of written legal systems.