The Letters of Hammurabi

Hammurabi of Babylon · c. 1792-1750 BC (reign of Hammurabi) · Babylon (Iraq) · letters

Hammurabi's own outgoing administrative correspondence, ordering canal maintenance, resolving property disputes, and directing officials by name, argues that the king's celebrated law code was only the public face of a much more granular, day-to-day style of personal rule conducted by letter.