Era of Ur From Abraham and Hammurabi Onwards After He Left

Nadene Goldfoot                                   

Two men of importance, Abraham of Ur of the Chaldees, Biblical patriarch to whom both the Jewish people and many Arabian tribes trace their ancestry  who lived from 1948 BCE onwards, and Hammurabi of Babylon, king of Babylon, who lived from 1728 -1686 BCE, were from Mesopotamia, now Iraq.                                         

     People of Iraq today after their war.  The Iraq War was a protracted armed conflict in Iraq from 2003 to 2011 that began with the invasion of Iraq by the United States-led coalition that overthrew the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein. The conflict continued for much of the next decade as an insurgency emerged to oppose the coalition forces and the post-invasion Iraqi government. US troops were officially withdrawn in 2011. The United States became re-involved in 2014 at the head of a new coalition, and the insurgency and many dimensions of the armed conflict are ongoing. The invasion occurred as part of the George W. Bush administration's war on terror following the September 11 attacks, despite no connection between Iraq and the attacks.

Before this war was the Iran/Iraq War from Sept 22, 1980 to August 20,1988. Most all men were wiped out in battle. Not much of a government remains.                    

Abraham was near the Euphrates River's end and Hammurabi north of Ur slightly in Babylon, now a part of Iraq.   

The clay tablets were found in the residential quarter of the city, of which a considerable area was excavated. The houses of private citizens in the Larsa period and under Hammurabi of Babylon (1728-1686 BCE) (c. 18th century BCE, in which period Abraham (1948 BCE)  is supposed to have lived at Ur) were comfortable and well-built two-story houses with ample accommodation for the family, for servants, and for guests, of a type that ensured privacy and was suited to the climate. In some houses was a kind of chapel in which the family god was worshipped and under the pavement of which members of the family were buried. Many large state temples were excavated, as were some small wayside shrines dedicated by private persons to minor deities, the latter throwing a new light upon Babylonian religious practices; but the domestic chapels, with their provision for the worship of the nameless family gods, are yet more interesting and have a possible relation to the religion of the Hebrew patriarchs.

                                                  

The Hammurabi code of laws, a collection of 282 rules, established standards for commercial interactions and set fines and punishments to meet the requirements of justice. Hammurabi's Code was carved onto a massive, finger-shaped black stone stele (pillar) that was looted by invaders and finally rediscovered in 1901.

Hammurabi (r. 1792-1750 BCE) almost 4,000 years ago (3,823) was the sixth king of the Amorite First Dynasty of Babylon best known for his famous law code which served as the model for others, including the Mosaic Law of the Bible.  However, it is said that Moses (1391-1271 BCE) or 3,374 years ago,  improved on the Hammurabi code a lot.  Hammurabi  was the first ruler able to successfully govern all of Mesopotamia, without revolt, following his initial conquest.

His law code is not the first such code in history (though it is often called so) but is certainly the most famous from antiquity prior to the code set down in the biblical books. The Code of Ur-Nammu (c. 2100-2050 BCE), which originated with either Ur-Nammu (r. 2047-2030 BCE) or his son Shulgi of Ur (r. 2029-1982 BCE), is the oldest code of laws in the world. The laws of Ur-Nammu and Eshnunna may have predated Hammurabi’s code by a few hundred years, but his laws were said to be so fundamental that they could not be altered even by the king. The laws themselves were based on the “eye for an eye” approach and make no mention of the gods, the temples or any kind of worship. They all concern people’s dealings with each other: for example, the proper punishment for killing an ox that doesn’t belong to you, or proper wages for labor.

Hammurabi's code differed from the earlier laws in significant ways. The historian Kriwaczek explains this, writing:

Hammurabi's laws reflect the shock of an unprecedented social environment: the multi-ethnic, multi-tribal Babylonian world. In earlier Sumerian-Akkadian times, all communities had felt themselves to be joint members of the same family, all equally servants under the eyes of the gods. In such circumstances disputes could be settled by recourse to a collectively accepted value system, where blood was thicker than water, and fair restitution more desirable than revenge. Now, however, when urban citizens commonly rubbed shoulders with nomads following a completely different way of life, when speakers of several west Semitic Amurru languages, as well as others, were thrown together with uncomprehending Akkadians, confrontation must all too easily have spilled over into conflict. Vendettas and blood feuds must often have threatened the cohesion of the empire. (180)This has a familiar ring to it throughout the world. 

Who were the gods Hammurabi tried to please?

Based on data prepared by the HEA-funded AMGG project, Anu/Anum was the supreme sky god of the Sumerian pantheon, head of the divine dynasty and father of many gods and goddesses. These include Inana or Ishtar, goddess of fertility, and Enlil, god of fate and destiny. His wife or consort is Urash, whose name evolved into Ki, goddess of earth, and Antu, probably a derivative of Anu. The Codex Hammurabi called him Anum rabu. The Creation Epic tells how Anu transferred his power to Marduk (god of the city of Babylon), who gradually became the new supreme god in Babylon. After the Old Babylonian period (about 2000 to 1595 B.C.) the final “m” of Anum disappears and the name Anum becomes A-nu or Anu. This god is later identified with the Greek supreme god Zeus.

The people of ancient Babylon built ziggurats, temples for their priests to commune with the gods from an elevated place. These massive, stepped brick semi-pyramids may have originally been constructed on platforms to emulate a mountain or to protect their precious holdings from thieves and flood waters. Archaeologists have found cuneiform texts, artifacts made of precious metals and stone carvings of legal records in the ziggurats. Biblical scholars have suggested that the Towel of Babel may refer to a ziggurat.  

    King  Nebuchadnezar II (605–562 BCE) conquered all the lands from the Euphrates to the Egyptian frontier, including Judah.  In 597 BCE, after Judah revolted, he dispatched contingents which captured Jerusalem, replaced the young King Jehoiachin with his own nominee, Zedekiah, and exiled 8,000 of the local aristocracy to Babylon of which history is vetted and in a British museum.  

After a long period of relative neglect, Ur experienced a revival in the Neo-Babylonian period, under Nebuchadrezzar II , who practically rebuilt the city. Scarcely less active was Nabonidus, the last king of Babylon (556–539 BCE), whose great work was the remodeling of the ziggurat, increasing its height to seven stages.

The last phase, 6th–4th century BCE:  The last king to build at Ur was the Achaemenian Cyrus the Great (d:529 BCE-king of Persia), whose inscription on bricks is similar to the “edict” quoted by the scribe Ezra regarding the restoration of the Temple at Jerusalem. The conqueror was clearly anxious to placate his new subjects by honouring their gods, whatever those gods might be. But Ur was now thoroughly decadent; it survived into the reign of Artaxerxes II, but only a single tablet (of Philip Arrhidaeus, 317 BCE) carries on the story. It was perhaps at this time that the Euphrates changed its course; and with the breakdown of the whole irrigation system, Ur, its fields reduced to desert, was finally abandoned. Cyrus in 538 BCE granted permission to the exiles of Judah in Babylon to return to their homeland and rebuild the Temple (Ezra 1:1-44) (Chron.36:22-3).  The Jewish exiles regarded Cyrus as a divine agent, possibly even the son of Queen Esther.  

Discoveries made on other sites have supplemented the unusually full record obtained from the Ur excavations. Knowledge of the city’s history and of the manner of life of its inhabitants, of their business, and of their art is now fairly complete and remarkably detailed.

Resource:

https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-middle-east/hammurabihttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebuchadnezzar_IIhttps://classroom.synonym.com/religion-ancient-babylon-during-time-hammurabi-6503.html