The Earliest Known Building Codes

Hammurabi's Code of Laws

 (1792-1750 BC)

By far the most remarkable of the Hammurabi records is his code of laws, the earliest-known example of a ruler proclaiming publicly to his people an entire body of laws.

Hammurabi’s Code of Laws were all-inclusive; a few of them regulated the building contractors of the time. Of the 282 codes, numbers 228 through 233 are those which represent the rules for construction.

• 228. If a builder has built a house for a man, and finished it, he shall pay him a fee of two shekels of silver, for each SAR built on.

• 229. If a builder has built a house for a man, and has not made his work sound, and the house he built has fallen, and caused the death of its owner, that builder shall be put to death.

• 230. If it is the owner's son that is killed, the builder's son shall be put to death.

• 231. If it is the slave of the owner that is killed, the builder shall give slave for slave to the owner of the house.

• 232. If he has caused the loss of goods, he shall render back whatever he has destroyed. Moreover, because he did not make sound the house he built, and it fell, at his own cost he shall rebuild the house that fell.

• 233. If a builder has built a house for a man, and has not keyed his work, and the wall has fallen, that builder shall make that wall firm at his own expense.