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This is one of my favorite things to see whenever I visit the British Museum. I just love the mental image of bored guards playing a game to pass the time on a
by a_e_k 3y ago
This is one of my favorite things to see whenever I visit the British Museum. I just love the mental image of bored guards playing a game to pass the time on a slow afternoon at the city gates.
Similarly, I enjoyed once seeing the preserved birch bark doodles of a schoolboy named Onfim from ~800 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onfim https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onfim
- thaumasiotes 3y agoGood link. I found this extract from the Wikipedia page especially charming: > Onfim left seventeen known birch bark items. Twelve of those have illustrations, five only text. One of the drawings features a knight on a horse, with Onfim's name written next to him, stabbing someone on the ground with a lance, with scholars speculating that Onfim pictured himself as the knight. On the one hand, the evidence for that speculation isn't really sufficient. What if he was just autographing his work? But on the other hand, the conclusion is so obvious.
- keithalewis 3y agoThat the human brain evolved to make up stories? Even sleep doesn't stop it from doing that.
- thaumasiotes 3y agoDid you mean to respond to a different comment?