250 Fils Bas-relief King Hammurabi and sun-god

This issue was part of a series Iraq struck in 1982 celebrating ancient Mesopotamian heritage — a deliberate act of cultural nationalism during the early years of the Iran-Iraq War, when the Ba'athist government was actively drawing ideological lines between Arab-Iraqi civilization and Persian Iran. Hammurabi, as the Babylonian king who codified one of the earliest written legal systems around 1754 BC, was a recurring symbol in Ba'athist propaganda.

The bas-relief depicted is derived from the famous diorite stele now held at the Louvre, looted from Babylon by the Elamites in the 12th century BC.