Journal 8: Noting Annotations

The main theme of my paper is the sociological role of revenge in ancient Babylon. I will focus on Hammurabi’s code of law which was a collection of 282 laws on a stone pillar (UShistory) that basically made direct revenge legal. The saying “an eye for an eye” came from this time period. This code of law asserted the importance of revenge in this society. My research started by looking at how sociology can lead to revenge. I decided that this topic was too broad for a paper of this length, so I narrowed it by doing more research on ancient Babylon during the time of Hammurabi’s rule. Upon research, I found many interesting things. For example, I found that the people in this time very much valued their property. If someone stole their property, they were legally allowed to cut that person’s hand off. Because revenge was so encouraged in this society, everyone followed the rules very well. However, their obedience was only done out of fear. If the rules weren’t as strict as they were there would be a lot more disobedience. Many people were also forced to stay to their class, and couldn’t make something of themselves. They were divided into 3 classes and your class determined the severity of the punishment.

“Hammurabi's Code: An Eye for an Eye.” Ushistory.org, Independence Hall Association, http://www.ushistory.org/civ/4c.asp.