“[Hammurabi’s] most famous remains are the somewhat overinterpreted and perhaps misnamed Code of Hammurabi. Originally, it was an eight-foot-high black basalt stele erected at the end of his reign beside a statue or possibly idol of himself. So far as we can make out, someone seeking redress from another would come to the steward’s statue, to “hear my words” (as the stele says at the bottom), and then move over to the stele itself, where the previous judgments of the stewards god are recorded. . . . [T]he top of the stele is sculptured to depict the scene of judgment-giving. The god is seated on a raised mound which in Mesopotamian graphics symbolizes a mountain. An aura of flames flashes up from his shoulders as he speaks (which has made some scholars think it is Shamash, the sun-god). Hammurabi listens intently as he stands just below him (“under-stands”). The god holds in his right hand the attributes of power, the rod and circle very common to such divine depictions. Whith these symbols, the god is just touching the left elbow of his steward, Hammurabi. One of the magnificent things about this scene is the hypnotic assurance with which both god and steward-king intently stare at each other, impassively majestic, the steward-king’s right hand held up between us, the observers, and the plane of communication. Here is no humility, no begging before a god, as occurs just a few centuries later. . . . There is only obedience. And what is being dictated . . . are judgments on a series of very specific cases.”

—Julian Jaynes, from The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, 1976. That last bit reminds me of the Dog Whisperer. Does anybody know what I mean?