Similarities Between Gilgamesh And The Code Of Hammurabi

In ancient times, when humans were in the infant stage of development of human history, humans’ understandings of nature were just based on their imagination. While facing the powerful forces of nature, people are aware that their own strength is pretty small, and their fate is controlled by an invisible power-- they called this unknown force “god”. With the passage of time, people seem to foresee the possibility of overcoming nature, and they begin to look forward to their own peers, a powerful figure, to complete the great cause of beating nature, which inspired the idea of religion. From The Epic of Gilgamesh and The code of Hammurabi, we could have an overview on how religion emerged, changed and worked in Mesopotamia.

Mesopotamia held

a polytheistic belief system, which means that the people believed in multiple gods that were connected to specialized occupations, such as sky, air, and Earth, rather than believed in one omnipotent god. People in Mesopotamia believed that if one of these powerful gods was angered, they would be punished for their unhappiness. When something bad happened (usually a natural disaster like flooding), it was because the correlating god was angry at them. People confirmed that some powerful people have the ability to communicate with gods, transmit divine life to humanity, and save humans life from misery. They were the medium between humans and gods, and the incarnation of god in the world. The priests, who can interpret the natural phenomena which was regarded as the foreshadow of gods, stand at the top of the triangle of social structure. This the the beginning of religions.
Due to the scarcity of natural resources, acquiring resources people need to live have to be maintained by trade with adjacent cities. By managing trade in Ziggurats, one of the important diplomatic events, priests improved their social status and earned the prestige of people. The great Ziggurat at Ur, one of the largest ziggurats of Mesopotamia, for example, was built for Nann, the goddess of moon, by the king Ur-Nammu of the Third Dynasty of Ur. Expecting for worshipping
the patron god of the city of Ur, ziggurat was also the place where the citizens of Ur stored their agricultural surplus and receive their regular food allotments. As the liver in Ziggurats, priests definitely stand on the top of social structure, as Ziggura, where priests live, stand on the center city. As long as trade exists, keeping a permanent record is required. Cuneiform, the wedge-shaped script which originally was the simplified pictograph depicting the shape of objects, was therefore invented, further enforcing the high social status of religious workers. So to speak, trade put the religion in Mesopotamia into a high level.
The Epic of Gilgamesh had included most famous gods in Sumerian society, but the interesting thing was, many god’s name appeared in The Epic of Gilgamesh was not their original name, but instead, they were renamed by the Akkadians. During the time of Akkad(C.2400-2300 BCE), Akkadians frequently battled with other city-states, adopting many cultures from another area. For example, the Sumerian god An, he became known as Anu among the Akkadians. Similarly, the Sumerian god Enki, who was later known as Éa in Akkad language, the Sumerian moon god Nanna, who was later named Sîn, and the Sumerian sun god Utu, who was called Shamash, were also adopted. Also, expect for adoption, there were another impact that resulted after war, crashing culture. For example, Inanna, one of the most notable goddesses of Sumerian sex and war, had not hold as the significant importance in the 18th century BCE as she did before, after Hammurabi, the king of Babylon declared Marduk as their patron god.
When it comes to gods, most people will think of “The divine right of Kings” in Britain, which refers to the god empowers Kings with the rights to manage citizens. Dating back to the era of Babylon, the time of the first written form of literature, The Epic of Gilgamesh, “The divine right of Kings” had already loomed. In The Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh, the great king of Urk in the history, had decreed density of king. He had “given the supreme power over people, victory form with no fugitive returns, in forays and assaults from which there is no going back.”(24) But at the same time, the right of king was also limited by gods. After Gilgamesh’s royal friend Enkidu died, he placed his hope on the everlasting life. In his journey of pursuing everlasting life, even he found the mysterious plant that enables human to restore lost youth under many dangers and difficulties, he at last returned to Urk with nothing in his hands. Because gods said the everlasting life was not his destiny.
The Epic of Gilgamesh was not only a work of praising heroic Urk’s king, but instead, it revealed a strict class-ruling society.

In The Epic of Gilgamesh, he “[sounded] the tocsin of this amusement, his arrogance [had] no bounds by day or night”, and by his power he forced city residents to build his walls and temples, leaving “no virgin to her lover, neither the warrior’s daughter nor the wife of noble.”(4) He was described as an excessive brutal king, and thus aroused people’s anger. At that time, the social contradiction between social class and the strict domination aroused strong dissatisfaction. But citizens were not enough to fight against power, and they had nowhere to release and suppressed it year after year. It was because of this situation, people begged for the appearance of Enkidu, and were eager to look for the leadership of a wise and humane king. The code of Hammurabi provided an insight on the social structure of Babylon: the triangle structure with the top of the king, priests, and aristocrats, middle with free citizens and bottom with slaves. This code did not guarantee the basic right of slaves and the punishment for misbehavior was different from the social class. The social status of slaves was under the bottom of society, and they served as the labor machines (If someone broke your machine, what he or she need to do is pay for the cost.) For example, according to the code 221-223, the payment for healing broken bones was varied from social class, five shekels for top class, three for a freed man, and only two for slaves. But if someone killed a slave, then what she or he need to do was to pay one-third of mina. (Code

208)
In the Epic of Gilgamesh, a story about the great flooding had told by the only survivor, which shared a high similarity with the story in Bible. Many historians assumed that the epic of Gilgamesh was the prototype of the Bible, and it influenced many different religions that were prevailed at nowadays throughout many areas. Religion in Mesopotamia is the ideological outline of society, the foundation of civilization, and the motive force of culture and the source of artistic creation.