Hammurabi is an ancient ruler of Mesopotamia/Babylon who is famous for establishing a written code of laws, of which copies inscribed in steles have survived to this day). I don't know of it's the earliest example of a written legal code but certainly one of the earliest that we have a record of.
Among these laws were civil penalties for builders who performed shoddy workmanship:
> If a builder constructs a house for a man but does not make it conform to specifications so that a wall then buckles, that builder shall make that wall sound using his own silver.
By the way, the Romans also had building codes, and engineers who built bridges and roads were liable for the durability of those structures, thus a tradition of over-engineering.
> I don't know if it's the earliest example of a written legal code but certainly one of the earliest that we have a record of.
It isn't, but it was discovered early and benefited from intense popular interest in the Bible. Popular interest in Mesopotamian history fell off sharply as it turned out that history generally differed from what the Bible said.
It's still very early, roughly the 18th century BC.
>> If a builder constructs a house for a man but does not make it conform to specifications so that a wall then buckles, that builder shall make that wall sound using his own silver.
This is obviously a statement about who bears liability for fixing the wall, but it's funnier if you imagine it as a requirement for the builder to repair the wall with silver bricks, as a penalty for the original shoddy work.
> 229 If a builder builds a house for someone, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built falls and kills its owner, then that builder shall be put to death.
Thus the builders guild began to charge 50 silver for insurrance yearly from its members, which resulted to all road projects having a yearly 100 silver talent cost-addition on start. 5 years after the code, the empire went bankrupt
Would it be so hard to google an unknown figure? Jesus christ, open the schools. If you're confused there's much less hostile ways to indicate you want explanation.
Parent definitely would've nerd sniped me with a link and if these replies here on HN hadn't been there to catch my interest first I would have just googled him.
Basically by trying to be a smart ass and belittling others they harmed their own cause of making Hammurabi more widely known.
I might actually agree with you if I hadn't read all the other replies shiroiushi has made since. I firmly believe he's out on some crusade to belittle everyone he can now that didn't have the exact same education as him.
Or just do it for kicks and to feel better about himself.
He’s in the curriculums lots and lots of US schools, as part of teaching about the rule of law and eventually the rise of modern liberal democracy. Maybe not so much in other countries?
For anyone who went through that, he’s another “the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell”-type answer form 6th grade tests or whatever.
Regardless, I suspect there's a point being made about the timeless ineptitude of bureaucracy (even if I don't agree with it—some cultures are notably more competent at managing logistics of public works than other are).
one of my classmates really resented having to take GE classes outside his major in order to graduate but looking back on it, he said they really helped him out in ways he didn't expect.
Funny, I graduated middle and high school, paid attention in class, and have never heard of him. It's almost like different states and school districts have different curricula.
Wow. This was basic secondary school history when I was educated. The code of Hammurabi is considered the basis of the western judicial tradition. This baseline knowledge I would expect in any peer, it does not require a specialized degree or study. The collective infantilization of our scholastic standards is frightening.
You can find the US state standards used to set baseline requirements ("learning standards") for school district curriculums online, for most (all?) states.
Let's take an infamously-bad state for education ("Thank God For Mississippi") and famously good one (Massachussetts).
Cmd/ctrl-F "hamm" on this one to find it for Mississippi:
(Theirs is a little weird [probably because their government's, you know, bad] and this comes from a non-profit organization, but it seems to in-fact be the official curriculum standards for their actual BOE, as well)
Same deal, you'll find it with a search ("Hamm" also finds one occurrence of Muhammad, in this case, though, but it does get a few hits on Hammurabi)
A person may have missed it due to: 1) going to schools outside the US that maybe don't emphasize Hammurabi, or 2) moving between US school systems that don't teach Hammurabi in the same year(s), such that they leave one before it's taught and arrive at the other after it's been taught.
Among these laws were civil penalties for builders who performed shoddy workmanship:
> If a builder constructs a house for a man but does not make it conform to specifications so that a wall then buckles, that builder shall make that wall sound using his own silver.
By the way, the Romans also had building codes, and engineers who built bridges and roads were liable for the durability of those structures, thus a tradition of over-engineering.