Angela
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Yes, e.g.:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hittite_laws
They were less cruel and inhumane in their punishments, as well as more concerned about the individual, more generally speaking. This is something I have read multiple times in various secondary sources on the Hittites.
Their strength was also their weakness, because their rulers were not as much god-given as those of the local Oriental empires, and their structure was more federal and aristocratic, in comparison. This resulted in more inner tumult and conflicts, a weaker cohesion. Basically the quotations your brought up just proved that.
The Greeks had a unique free and logical spirit, a specific approach to art and life, which was no longer bound by as much superstition and religious restriction. I highly doubt the Minoans were the same, but its very unfortunate we don't know more about them and their writings (Linear A) being still not really fully deciphered.
It's always a good idea, given that every Tom, Dick, and Harry can "edit" Wiki articles, to go read the citation for any statement of fact. The citation about the their law code merely lists some of their provisions. It makes no comparison to the Code of Hammurabi. That was the OPINION of the unknown writer of that Wiki article.
It would seem logical to me that the original, much more harsh collection "might" be closer to the laws which the Hittites might have brought with them. In time, and having to rule over groups with differing rules, those different viewpoints might have been ameliorated. Or, since they were illiterate initially, they may just have adopted local laws in the beginning, and changed them over time. Of course, this is all conjecture. None of us has a crystal ball.
What we do know, however, is that there were differences within the Near East in terms of their laws.
According to some authors the Sumerian system was the most humane and treated women better, with the Assyrians on the other end of the scale.
https://www.google.com/books/editio...1&dq=Hittite+Law&pg=PA178&printsec=frontcover
What is also true is that we are fortunate to have different versions chronologically of the Laws of the Hittites, which we do not have for the Code of Hammurabi, so we do not know if and how it may have changed over time.
At any rate, I don't see what this has to do with the Indo-Europeans, as the use of payment to a victim, which seems to have been part of proto-Indo-European society, was also a feature in the Near East.