section 274.  If a man shall hire an artisan—­

(a) the hire of a . . . five SE of silver

(b) the hire of a brickmaker five SE of silver

(c) the hire of a tailor . five SE of silver

(d) the hire of a stone-cutter . SE of silver

(e) the hire of a . . . SE of silver

(f) the hire of a . . . SE of silver

(g) the hire of a carpenter four SE of silver

(h) the hire of a . . . four SE of silver

(i) the hire of a . . . SE of silver

(j) the hire of a builder. . . SE of silver per diem he shall give.

section 275.  If a man has hired a (boat?) per diem, her hire is three SE of silver.

section 276.  If a man has hired a fast ship, he shall give two and a half SE of silver per diem as her hire.

section 277.  If a man has hired a ship of sixty GUR, he shall give one-sixth of a shekel of silver per diem as her hire.

section 278.  If a man has bought a manservant or a maidservant, and he has not fulfilled his month and the bennu sickness has fallen upon him, he shall return him to the seller, and the buyer shall take the money he paid.

section 279.  If a man has bought a manservant or a maidservant and has a complaint, his seller shall answer the complaint.

section 280.  If a man has bought in a foreign land the manservant or the maidservant of a man, when he has come into the land, and the owner of the manservant or the maidservant has recognised his manservant or his maidservant, if the manservant or maidservant are natives without price he shall grant them their freedom.

section 281.  If they are natives of another land the buyer shall tell out before God the money he paid, and the owner of the manservant or the maidservant shall give to the merchant the money he paid, and shall recover his manservant or his maidservant.

section 282.  If a slave has said to his master ‘Thou art not my master,’ as his slave one shall put him to account and his master shall cut off his ear.

* * * * *

The judgements of righteousness which Hammurabi the mighty king confirmed and caused the land to take a sure guidance and a gracious rule.

The following three sections, which are known to belong to the Code from copies made for an Assyrian king in the seventh century B.C., are given here for the sake of completeness.  They obviously come within the space once occupied by the five erased columns.

section X. If a man has taken money from a merchant and has given a plantation of dates to the merchant, has said to him, ’The dates that are in my plantation take for thy money,’ that merchant shall not agree, the dates that are in the plantation the owner of the plantation shall take, and he shall answer to the merchant for the money and its interests according to the tenour of his bond.  The dates that are over, which are in the plantation, the owner of the plantation shall take forsooth.