3 ms·

What strikes me most about these documents is the mundanity of life back then. Like an agreement to pay someone back is one of them (a basic IOU), the other is

by secant 10y ago

What strikes me most about these documents is the mundanity of life back then. Like an agreement to pay someone back is one of them (a basic IOU), the other is a telling off for some financial reason. It's strange to think back then people were having equivalent disagreements and deals as they have now. Ancient times always tend to feel very untouchable because of the massive span of time separating us and them, but I see that the basic tenets of human life still existed back then from this limited material. It makes me wonder how far back we would have to go back to find proto-civilisations that make no sense, human sacrifice not withstanding.

eprime 10y ago
Recently I saw a rather normal documentary about a western scientist or adventurer staying with a remote tribe in the developing world - I don't remember much about the actual content of the documentary, but what I do remember is the translations. The translators translated everything and mostly we heard mundane, normal speech. Things like a mother telling someone to eat their food, or girls idly talking about their hair, or how bored they felt last night, or about their lousy husband. I also can't remember the actual content of the conversations! It really refreshed me listening to it. Hearing normal people speaking brought these people incredibly closer to me. Instead of having this anthropological outsider view of these people, we saw that they were alike, we existed with them, not apart. These documents have a similar feeling with me - they bring me closer to the people living there.
fapjacks 10y ago
You can get this same sort of feeling from the various graffiti found preserved in places like Pompeii. I am extremely interested in this very thing. If two thousand years doesn't separate everyday people from "the normal problems" that we experience, I wonder equally if I could go back ten thousand or fifteen thousand years and have the same kinds of thoughts ("Arkurush has refused to pay for the chickens I gave him").

by secant 10y ago

eprime 10y ago

Recently I saw a rather normal documentary about a western scientist or adventurer staying with a remote tribe in the developing world - I don't remember much about the actual content of the documentary, but what I do remember is the translations. The translators translated everything and mostly we heard mundane, normal speech. Things like a mother telling someone to eat their food, or girls idly talking about their hair, or how bored they felt last night, or about their lousy husband. I also can't remember the actual content of the conversations! It really refreshed me listening to it. Hearing normal people speaking brought these people incredibly closer to me. Instead of having this anthropological outsider view of these people, we saw that they were alike, we existed with them, not apart. These documents have a similar feeling with me - they bring me closer to the people living there.

fapjacks 10y ago

You can get this same sort of feeling from the various graffiti found preserved in places like Pompeii. I am extremely interested in this very thing. If two thousand years doesn't separate everyday people from "the normal problems" that we experience, I wonder equally if I could go back ten thousand or fifteen thousand years and have the same kinds of thoughts ("Arkurush has refused to pay for the chickens I gave him").