Toine Klaassen
Untitled, 2005

This work consists of rusty nails put on the ceiling composing the names of different global corporations like Shell, Pentax, Texaco, BMW….

Visit his TRAVELING LABORATORY FOR CONTEMPORARY ARCHAEOLOGY

——————————————————————————————————–

The 196th Law (“an eye for an eye..”) of Hammurabi, King of Babylonia, using graphics, in three different modes of cuneiform script, illustrating the evolution of signs over time. The first is the original Old Babylonian version (around 1750 BC), the second is in Neo-Assyrian signs (around 1000 BC), and the third is in the classic Sumerian signs used about 400 years before Hammurabi’s reign. Below that follow a transliteration into Akkadian and a translation into English.

Original Old-Babylonian

Neo-Assyrian

Classic Sumerian

Transliteration

šumma awīlum
īn mār awīlim
uḫtappid
īn šu
uḫappadû

English

If a man
the eye of a son of man
destroys
eye his
they will destroy.