The
Hammurabi Stela
Louvre Museum
The
top of the stele depicts Utu (or the Akkadian Shamash) the seated
sun god giving a scepter and ring to King Hammurabi c. 1790-1750
BCE. Louvre Museum Paris
In
Babylonian mythology Shamash had two children, Kittu and Mishara,
Law and Justice. The god of the sun, Shamash rose in the east
in the morning bringing light to the world and descended in the
west in the evening. He traveled by night in the evening through
the underworld to rise again in the morning.
