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Who’s the First Person in History Whose Name We Know? (2015)

phenomena.nationalgeographic.com

61–70 of 136 posts

Re: Who’s the First Person in History Whose Name We Know? (2015)

#61
post #43
post #8

Other brief discussions about this topic suggesting other candidates: http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question114584.html http://ask.metafilter.com/103405/Who-was-the-first-person-in... One Metafilter user ("Riemann") makes the interesting point that a huge number of clay tablets that have been excavated remain untranslated, so it's quite possible that new candidates would turn up over time as scholars examine those a…

Why can't we scan and use OCR with machine learning to automatically translate those clay tablets?

I doubt you can throw them in a scanner, but digital photos should be doable.

Once it's digital, you can let the internet devour it, one way or another. Shouldn't take long.

Re: Who’s the First Person in History Whose Name We Know? (2015)

#62
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first recorded writer probably was a male, indeed. That's because most ancient societies were blatantly misogynistic. Actually, my understanding is that the emerging reality is more interesting. Pre-agricultural hunter-gatherer societies were non-patriarchal and patriarchal societies only later became the norm with the rise of warlike/raiding and settled agricultural societies which co-evolved and co-depended on…

Social hierarchies are thought to be one of the innovations of civilization. There is not any evidence of an inherent matriarchy or patriarchy, and there were civilizations that went either way. In fact the strongest theory I've seen argues for a dichotomy of plough vs hoe civilizations: men are better equipped to plough, women are better equipped to hoe. This led to division of labor and social stratification along…

AFAIK, probably all social mammals, including all primates have social hierarchies.

There is an alpha male and an alpha female, and the ranking order under them is quite defined.

Re: Who’s the First Person in History Whose Name We Know? (2015)

#63
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first recorded writer probably was a male, indeed. That's because most ancient societies were blatantly misogynistic. Actually, my understanding is that the emerging reality is more interesting. Pre-agricultural hunter-gatherer societies were non-patriarchal and patriarchal societies only later became the norm with the rise of warlike/raiding and settled agricultural societies which co-evolved and co-depended on…

Social hierarchies are thought to be one of the innovations of civilization. There is not any evidence of an inherent matriarchy or patriarchy, and there were civilizations that went either way. In fact the strongest theory I've seen argues for a dichotomy of plough vs hoe civilizations: men are better equipped to plough, women are better equipped to hoe. This led to division of labor and social stratification along…

In fact the strongest theory I've seen argues for a dichotomy of plough vs hoe civilizations: men are better equipped to plough, women are better equipped to hoe.

Whether accurate or not, this emphasizes that there are very small and often unintended details in society that give power to one gender or another.

Re: Who’s the First Person in History Whose Name We Know? (2015)

#64
post #14

The first recorded writer probably was a male, indeed. That's because most ancient societies were blatantly misogynistic. It's unlikely women were afforded the opportunity to be educated or trained in the scholastic, monastic, or financial professions which were most likely to leave some form of written record. So, yeah, the odds, based on historical predicates, are that the first recorded human's name was a male nam…

> most ancient societies were blatantly misogynistic

Ancient Egypt was more liberal than US in 1950. And do you have any concrete evidence that 'Kushim' is not a female name? I think it is sexist to assume it could not be a women.

Re: Who’s the First Person in History Whose Name We Know? (2015)

#65
post #14

The first recorded writer probably was a male, indeed. That's because most ancient societies were blatantly misogynistic. It's unlikely women were afforded the opportunity to be educated or trained in the scholastic, monastic, or financial professions which were most likely to leave some form of written record. So, yeah, the odds, based on historical predicates, are that the first recorded human's name was a male nam…

I just don't understand all the guess work in the article. Based on the historical record to date, the first written records appeared in Mesopotamia, and it has long been understood writing developed out of economic need. Further, we have a vast records on the people and culture of ancient Mesopotamia. We know it was a patriarchal society. Their religious texts specifically define the stages of a women's life as: "I…

well he had to pad it somehow right? he couldn't just write hey I googled first written name and it's 'Kushim' first place or 'Gal-Sal, En-pap X and Sukkalgir' if the first turns out to be a job.

Re: Who’s the First Person in History Whose Name We Know? (2015)

#66
post #64
post #14

The first recorded writer probably was a male, indeed. That's because most ancient societies were blatantly misogynistic. It's unlikely women were afforded the opportunity to be educated or trained in the scholastic, monastic, or financial professions which were most likely to leave some form of written record. So, yeah, the odds, based on historical predicates, are that the first recorded human's name was a male nam…

> most ancient societies were blatantly misogynistic Ancient Egypt was more liberal than US in 1950. And do you have any concrete evidence that 'Kushim' is not a female name? I think it is sexist to assume it could not be a women.

> And do you have any concrete evidence that 'Kushim' is not a female name?

Most Indoeuropean languages have a vovel (most often "a") at the end of female names, and a consonant at the end of male names. It's just a consequence of the gender system and postfixes.

I'm not sure how old is this distinction, and I don't know if this writing system even preserved the vovels, if yes - it is indeed partial evidence that it was a male name.

More: https://www.quora.com/Why-do-so-many-female-names-end-in-vow...

In my (Slavic) language all female names end with "a" and all male names end with consonants.

Re: Who’s the First Person in History Whose Name We Know? (2015)

#67
post #64
post #14

The first recorded writer probably was a male, indeed. That's because most ancient societies were blatantly misogynistic. It's unlikely women were afforded the opportunity to be educated or trained in the scholastic, monastic, or financial professions which were most likely to leave some form of written record. So, yeah, the odds, based on historical predicates, are that the first recorded human's name was a male nam…

> most ancient societies were blatantly misogynistic Ancient Egypt was more liberal than US in 1950. And do you have any concrete evidence that 'Kushim' is not a female name? I think it is sexist to assume it could not be a women.

> Ancient Egypt was more liberal than US in 1950.

Right. With all of the slavery. And the emperor/pharaoh totalitarianism. And the state-sponsored religion. Very liberal.

> And do you have any concrete evidence that 'Kushim' is not a female name?

I did not say whether Kushim specifically was a male or female name, did I? Show me where. I suggest you read more carefully before jumping to conclusions and certainly before making inflammatory and insulting accusations to someone.

> I think it is sexist to assume it could not be a women.

Since I made no such assumption nor such comment, I have no idea why you wrote this. I didn't even weigh in on whether "Kushim" is likely to be a name at all. (It could be a title or a number of other possible monikers.)

Re: Who’s the First Person in History Whose Name We Know? (2015)

#69
post #27
post #14

The first recorded writer probably was a male, indeed. That's because most ancient societies were blatantly misogynistic. It's unlikely women were afforded the opportunity to be educated or trained in the scholastic, monastic, or financial professions which were most likely to leave some form of written record. So, yeah, the odds, based on historical predicates, are that the first recorded human's name was a male nam…

> the scholastic, monastic, or financial professions Even in a patriarchy, could it not be that one or more of these professions would be seen in some early societies as "women's work"—i.e. work at first done by women because it was low-status (it was the work that was "left over") and then later because those women became skilled in said work and it became their comparative advantage? This is, after all, what happen…

Yes, of course, these roles could be viewed as low-status in a patriarchy. And they might have been held by women even in a patriarchy regardless of whether they were considered low-class.

But we should consider the logic and likelihoods here.

Take the monastic/priest role or class. Does it seem more likely this role or class would be considered low-class and hold little power in most ancient civilizations, or that it would hold considerable power? Well, we can reason about this. Consider, based on what we know today, did religion seem to intermingle with government quite frequently in early civilizations? It seems so. Then the monastic/religious class likely held considerable power. Then by definition, in a patriarchy, it is more likely men held these roles more often than women. It sucks, but it stands to reason that it's likely that in most early civilizations, men more frequently held these power roles than women.

Now, consider scholars. Ask: was the ability to write widespread in most early civs? If not, would knowing how to write be a form of power? In a patriarchy, which sex more often holds roles of power? We have an educated guess for scholars, scribes, etc now too.

Follow similar logic for government officials. Would participating in government, and especially being responsible for written records in government likely confer power? It would seem so.

Follow similar logic for finance roles. Were accounts and records important? Likely yes, else why were they meticulously kept in early civilization examples? If they were important, does being an official financial record keeper likely confer some form of power? In a patriarchy, which sex likely has those power roles?

We obviously can't say for sure. But we can reason and apply what knowledge we do have.

Re: Who’s the First Person in History Whose Name We Know? (2015)

#70
post #43
post #8

Other brief discussions about this topic suggesting other candidates: http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question114584.html http://ask.metafilter.com/103405/Who-was-the-first-person-in... One Metafilter user ("Riemann") makes the interesting point that a huge number of clay tablets that have been excavated remain untranslated, so it's quite possible that new candidates would turn up over time as scholars examine those a…

Why can't we scan and use OCR with machine learning to automatically translate those clay tablets?

> Why can't we scan and use OCR those clay tablets?

Possibly for the same reason you can't scan 88-year-old images of Mickey Mouse without being sued by Disney.

The academics who control things like that are protective with their finds (even if they didn't find it, but got control). The Dead Sea Scrolls weren't published for decades because the scholars who got to them first wouldn't let anyone else see them[1]; they got published only after the government intervened.

One scholar even sued[2] another over copyright infringement for publishing the words he painstakingly copied off the scrolls; the guy he sued had merely copied his copy of the 2000-year-old words.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_Scrolls#Publication

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_Scrolls#Ownership

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