How is Hammurabi’s code organized? Why do you think some laws are first?.
Paper details
Review each questions primary sources to answer the following questions in approximately 250 words each, 12 pt font and 1 reference from given sources per question. Q1 Primary Sources to review: Website: Hammurabi, The Code of Hammurabi [-2250] (scroll about half way down the page past the transliteration to the English translation)
http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/hammurabi-the-code-of-hammurabi Q1: How is Hammurabi’s code organized? Why do you think some laws are first? What do the laws tell you about the nature of early urban life? What seem to be major concerns? Do the laws seem just? Why or why not? Q2 Primary sources to review: Primary Sources: Website: The Iranian Afterlife – http://www.mircea-eliade.com/from-primitives-to-zen/172.html Website: Cyrus as Liberator (Isaiah 45) – https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=ISA+45&version=NIV Website: Hebrew Afterlife (Isaiah 56) – https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=IS+56&version=NIV Q2: Historians treat religious texts as primary sources, that is, as sources written by people at the time being studied that express their beliefs, ideals, and practices. To interpret religious texts as historical documents, historians have to put their own religious beliefs on hold and approach religious texts for what they tell us about the people who created them. Historians are not concerned about whether the religious beliefs were correct or not; that is a theological rather than a historical concern. So, with that in mind and putting your own religious beliefs aside, please answer the following questions: What is the tone of the Zoroastrian and Hebrew texts? Who do you think were their audiences? Did the texts represent a new form of inclusiveness as Kevin Reilly argues? Why or why not? How were the texts connected to other developments of the Iron Age? What surprised you most about the texts? Why? Q3 Primary sources to review: Website: Baghdad under the Abbasids, c. 1000 CE – https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1000baghdad.asp Q3: Examine the architectural images at https://islamicartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2011/11/abbasid-architecture.html. The buildings are three-dimensional primary sources created by the inhabitants of the Abbasid and Umayyad empires. What do they reveal or confirm about the Abbasid Empire? How do they compare to the contemporary description of Baghdad in “Baghdad under the Abbasids, c. 1000 CE” at https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1000baghdad.asp? What do you see as the strengths and limitations of each kind of primary source (three dimensional structures and written document) for historical research? Q4 Primary sources to review: Website: The Journey of Faxian to India (ca. 400 CE) – http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/faxian.html Website: The Travels of Marco Polo (ca. 1300 CE) – read Prologue through Chapter XV) – http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/Polo.html Q4: Faxian and Marco Polo lived 900 years apart, near the beginning and end of the Silk Road. What values do their narratives promote? What similarities and differences do you see in their narratives? How are those similarities and differences related to the kinds of journeys they undertook, the purposes of their journeys, and the times in which they composed their travel narratives?
How is Hammurabi’s code organized? Why do you think some laws are first?