Babylon and the Code of Hammurabi

Babylon, a city on the banks of the Euphrates, reached its first great period of splendor under the Amorite dynasty, particularly during the reign of Hammurabi (c. 1792-1750 BCE), who unified much of Mesopotamia under his authority and turned Babylon into the region's leading political and cultural center, a position the city would regain centuries later under the Neo-Babylonian Empire.