-Text in Akkadian language, read right to left and top to bottom in 51 columns. -sun god Shamash, enthroned on a ziggurat -handing Hammurabi a rope, a ring, and a rod of KingShip-Shamash frontal and profile at the same time: headdress in profile wings from behind his shoulder -Shamash’s beard is fuller than Hammurabi -Stare at one another directly -BAS-Relief
-300 law entries placed below the scene symbolically given from Shamash himself to Hammurabi.
-Contains one of the earliest law codes ever written
-Hammurabi 1792-1750BCE united Mesopotamia in his lifetime -Took Babylon from a small power to a dominant kingdom but at his death, the empire started to dwindle -Shamash judge of sky and earth, with tiara 4 rows of horns.
--Laws are written on the stele and cover topics from commerce and property to penalties for crimes. -For the first time in the history of art, their eyes are not frontal.