The Tablets
The first millennium copies of the Laws of Hammurabi examined here are both Neo-
Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian in origin. None of the tablets preserve the law code in its
entirety. Rather, certain tablets appear to be parts of a series that, when complete, may
have contained all of the text of the stele.^336 The sigla employed below are based on those
used by Borger, though some adjustments have been made to reflect joins that have since
been suggested by other scholars.^337
(^336) This much is evident from colophons that remain on some of the sources. An Old Babylonian copy, now
in Istanbul, Ni2553+2565, has a colophon that labels it as the second tablet in the series. 337
For the original assignment of sigla to the fragments see R. Borger, Babylonisch-Assyrische Lesestücke:
Heft II - Die Texte in Umschrift (Rome: Pontifica Institutum Biblicum, 1963) 2-4. Subscript numerals have
been added to some of the sigla to indicate which fragments of a rejoined tablet are being discussed in the
list of variants. This practice follows that established in the apparatus by A.R. George, Gilgamesh. It will
be noted that, in the other ‘score’ editions utilised in this study, joins are usually indicated by a sign ‘+’
between the fragments, and all joined fragments are referred to by the same sigla. In the case of the Law of
Hammurabi, though, the absence of a pre-existing publication that contained a ‘score’ edition of the text
allowed the present writer the opportunity to create his own ‘score,’ in which the method of assigning indi-
vidual siglum to each fragment, so recently utilised by A.R. George, was also employed.