Of the 282 laws once carved upon the stele, all are still legible. Their discovery is most important for the history of ancient Babylonia, as it has enabled scholars to reconstruct the standards of morality and justice current when the country came into its first strength and power. We may be sure that these laws were in vogue much earlier than the time of Hammurabi and they lived on with little change for many years after. They without doubt furnished the basis for the legal code throughout the history of Babylonia, and without some knowledge of them we would never have been able to understand the civilization of the country as it is known today. It is comparable to the "Mosaic Code," which is made up of different strata from different periods, cir. 1000 B.C. to 500 B.C. The similarity between the two codes harks back to an early period when the two peoples had not yet left their Arabian home, and indicates general Semitic customs. Hammurabi's code "is concerned little, if at all, with religious matters; the chief content is almost entirely civil and criminal, dealing with such subjects as marriage, the family, property rights, agricultural and commercial activities." It is on the basis of these laws now translated that the morality of the ancient Babylonians has been worked out. We find that the people were on the borderland of retaliation, and punishments often took the form of fines. There was still the old tribal "group responsibility"--that is, the children often had to suffer for the sins of the father. Distinction was now made between intentional and unintentional injury. Trial by ordeal was sometimes allowed, especially when magic was thought to have been used. Death was a frequent punishment. Banishment might be inflicted. On the whole, the practices in Babylonia, before and after 2000 B.C., were not so severe as those common in England a century ago, when petty larceny was met by extreme punishment.