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"King Hammurabi wanted to show he was fair, and for his laws to remain in place after he died."

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Government was the most influential part of civilization in ancient Mesopotamia.

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"It is important because it created a complete set of rules that helped govern a civilization while trying to protect people even if they had little political power”

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A map of how ancient Mesopotamia was ruled

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"The Code was one of the earliest examples of the presumption of innocence, and in some ways, it seemed fair. The most privileged members of society were to be held fully responsible to the laws. The lower classes of society were punished less harshly for breaking a law"

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Photo of Hammurabi's code and more rules from ancient Mesopotamia

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Evidence one shows that Hammurabi's code was a set of rules that tried to protect all of the people, not just the upper class. This is important because in a lot of ancient civilizations, the lower-class people were neglected and that would not be a very fair civilization to live in.

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Evidence 2 shows that King Hammurabi was very interested in making a very fair society that would last beyond his death, and we are hearing about the civilization even now so he clearly succeeded. He created a fair government that succeeded very well doing that.

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This piece of evidence shows that Hammurabi especially focused on helping the lower class society to be fairly punished, upper class men were even punished more harshly, because they clearly have the money and supplies to recover from being punished.

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Some people might say that Government is not essential for civilization in Mesopotamia, because a civilization can not form without a element like food supply. Without a solid food supply, there can be no civilization. However, if you had a government, they could organize the people and assign them specific tasks to do in order to get food. One peice of evidence that shows this is, "The stability of the household model of government, in which the king was to care for his people as a father his children, provided the stability that enabled the development of Sumerian culture, but at the same time, the lack of unity among the Sumerian states, vying for food and water resources as well as trade routes, encouraged ongoing military conflicts." This shows that with a government, people can be organized and used to do major tasks.