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The sheer age of the tablets is astounding; two thousand years before the fall of Troy, there are accountants tabulating sheep! One thousand years before the f
by sevensor 8y ago
The sheer age of the tablets is astounding; two thousand years before the fall of Troy, there are accountants tabulating sheep! One thousand years before the fall of Troy there were other accountants tabulating sheep, to whom the first set of accountants would have seemed unspeakably distant. History never fails to shock me with how big it is.
- benbreen 8y agoOne example of this that I love: the Papyrus Lansing from Middle Kingdom Egypt, which is maybe the world's oldest surviving example of career advice. It's both jarringly modern (encouraging teenagers to aim for office jobs, basically) and also bizarrely outlandish. One of the points the text gives in favor of being a scribe is that your name will be remembered -- and indeed, we still know the text's author by name: Nebmare-nakht. "Do you not recall the (fate of) the unskilled man? His name is not known... Be a scribe, and be spared from soldiering! You call and one says: "Here I am." You are safe from torments. Every man seeks to raise himself up. Take note of it!" http://www.u.arizona.edu/~afutrell/w%20civ%2002/paplansing.html http://www.u.arizona.edu/~afutrell/w%20civ%2002/paplansing.h...