Today I went to the Louvre. Yanmei has “been there”, so she decided to stay home and rest. I couldn't cover the whole place in one day. Hopefully I can come back again some day and spend more time there.
I don't get the fetish of photo taking in a place like the Louvre. People are looking at the art through the tiny screen of their phone/camera, snapping a shot and moving on. Don't they realize there are professionally taken photos available online, and the whole point of coming to the museum is to see the works in person instead of on a screen?
While the rooms with the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo were packed, the room with my favorite and, in my opinion, the most important item was almost deserted. I'm talking about the Code of Hammurabi. I confess I even took a couple of photos of it. It is not as visually striking as a Michaelangelo sculpture, for example, but its great age and historical significance make it the coolest object to me.
If you aren't familiar with it the Code of Hammurabi is a list of 282 laws from about 1750 BC that covers many everyday situations, such as merchants giving receipts for transactions. It is also the origin of “an eye for an eye”, although it goes on to elaborate lesser punishments for destroying the eye of a freeman (poor person), or a slave. Also it is the first instance of the presumption of innocence. In fact it is quite harsh stating that if you accuse someone of a crime for which the punishment is death and fail to prove the accusation, then you will be put to death.
I bought a book a few years ago with the translations of all the laws, it is pretty interesting reading. Lots of laws dealing with robbery and marriage. There is the concept of liability, for example if you accidentally injure someone you have to “pay the physicians.” I wouldn't want to be a physician though, because if a physician operates on a man and causes his death then his hands are to be cut off. I imagine a lot of operations in 1750 BC would result in death.
As I mentioned, we are staying in the Montmartre region of Paris, which is near the Sacré Coeur basilica, so we finally walked over there this evening.
As a bonus we got to see the full moon rise over Paris.
And the Eiffel Tower from a distance.
-David
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