Quality management in antiquity: the Code of Hammurabi

Around 1800 BC, King Hammurabi of Babylon had the laws of his kingdom carved in stone. The Code of Hammurabi is regarded as one of the world’s oldest collections of laws and regulated many areas of everyday life in 281 sections.

The provisions covered matters including family, property and possession, commercial affairs, offences and liability. The last of these, in particular, can also be interpreted in the broadest sense as an early form of quality assurance. Let us take a brief look at some of these sections:

Responsibility for damage

§ 53 If a man has neglected to strengthen the embankment of his field and has not secured it, and a breach has formed in his embankment, causing the water to wash away the cultivated land, the man in whose embankment the breach has formed shall replace the grain he has destroyed.

§ 55 If a man has opened his irrigation channel but then sat idle and thereby caused his neighbour’s field to be washed away by the water, he shall provide his neighbour with a corresponding quantity of grain.

Liability for defective work

§ 233 If a builder has built a house for a man but has not made his work durable and a wall has collapsed, that builder shall secure that wall at his own expense.

§ 235 If a shipbuilder has sealed a ship for a man but has not carried out his work reliably, and in that same year the ship has developed a leak and suffered damage, that shipbuilder shall dismantle the ship and make it sound at his own expense, and shall return the sound ship to its owner.

Drastic consequences

Not all the rules, however, were expressed in such moderate terms:

§ 218 If a physician has inflicted a serious injury on a man with a copper knife and killed him, or has opened the man’s eye socket with the copper knife and destroyed his eye, his hands shall be cut off.

§ 229 If a builder has built a house for a man but has not made his work sound, and the house he has built has collapsed and killed its owner, that builder shall be put to death.

Quality policy – carved in stone

In a sense, the Code of Hammurabi can therefore also be read as an early quality document: formulated very precisely, communicated clearly, approved by top management and accompanied by clearly defined consequences for deviations. Needless to say, much has changed in quality management over the past 4,000 years.

Modern quality management systems are now often certified or accredited, and processes are documented, reviewed and continuously improved. Although measures to address deviations are still implemented consistently, they are generally considerably less draconian today than they were in ancient Babylon.

Fortunately.