Today in Western Civ. we did a worksheet on Hammurabi's code. It is very interesting to see how they answered criminals in Sumerian times, they would just kill them most of the time. I do not know how the punishment is determined because the law on the damaged boat, another boat would just be replaced by the person who damaged the boat as compensation. But if a barber sells a slave that is not on sale, the barber gets put to death. I cannot understand why one dies and the other compensates because they are similar situations of damaged/ stolen property. Maybe it is because sailors have a higher social rank than barbers? The social rank does limit the punishment so I am pretty sure that is why. The most surprising thing I learned today is that there is a statue of Hammurabi in the U.S. supreme court. Yes he did have influential laws but a lot of them involve death and suffering. There is also bias towards men and bias to higher social classes which is not like the U.S. supreme court and he seems to be a bad role model for the supreme court.