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

phenomena.nationalgeographic.com

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

#71

Post by huuu »

c3534l wrote: post #51

Traditionally history is said to start where we have written records, the time before the being relegated to anthropology and archeology. But they say that the scope of economic history is larger because we have accounting records before we have written records. Before we had any clay tablets telling legends and recording the events of kings, we have the exchange rate between fish and barley, records of indebtedness,…

"that's a very modern idea of a job"

I don't agree. A vizier [1] is very related to an accountant. For example: Joseph (book of Genesis) became a vizier and had to account for the supplies in storehouses. Maybe he didn't do the accounting himself, but I'm sure they had a way to write down what was in stock and what not. They also traded with surrounding countries that were out of stock, so I'm sure this was bigger than the work of a small businessman.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vizier_(Ancient_Egypt)

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

#72

Post by vacri »

triclops200 wrote: post #33
vacri wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God brought the world into being in 4004 BC. This article has a tablet from 5000 BC, so it looks like Kushim is indeed older than Adam'n'Eve :)

You misread that a little. It says 3200 BCE (which is about 5000 years ago), not 5000 BCE.

Damn, sorry. I liked that joke :)

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

#73

Post by martinko »

"Note from Robert Krulwich: I see that this column has offended a whole bunch of you. Yes, as many of you point out, my viewpoint was white, male (and hung up on fame and power) and many of you have serious, and totally legitimate arguments with my assumptions. Now that I read your comments, I’m a little surprised, and a touch ashamed of myself. But the thing is—those were my assumptions. They were wrong. I say so."

It is so sad that so may discussions end up in places like this. Absolute bullshit.

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

#74

Post by jkot »

erdevs wrote: post #67
jkot wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 befo…

> the odds ... are that the first recorded human's name was a male name.

I think you have no evidence for that claim. Lot of ancient societies had equality (Egypt) or were even female dominated (ancient Crete).

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

#75

Post by twblalock »

martinko wrote: post #73

"Note from Robert Krulwich: I see that this column has offended a whole bunch of you. Yes, as many of you point out, my viewpoint was white, male (and hung up on fame and power) and many of you have serious, and totally legitimate arguments with my assumptions. Now that I read your comments, I’m a little surprised, and a touch ashamed of myself. But the thing is—those were my assumptions. They were wrong. I say so."…

He said something stupid, people didn't like it, and he apologized for it. Where is the bullshit in this situation?

There are legitimate historical reasons for assuming the first person who appears in records is a man, but the reason he gave was just dumb: "I’m figuring a he, because writing was a new thing, and males are usually the early adopters."

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

#77

Post by mgalka »

martinko wrote: post #73

"Note from Robert Krulwich: I see that this column has offended a whole bunch of you. Yes, as many of you point out, my viewpoint was white, male (and hung up on fame and power) and many of you have serious, and totally legitimate arguments with my assumptions. Now that I read your comments, I’m a little surprised, and a touch ashamed of myself. But the thing is—those were my assumptions. They were wrong. I say so."…

1. Didn't know Krulwich maintained a blog. It's awesome.

2. I respect that he took the time to write a thoughtful response. But reading the comments, it just looks like your standard troll BS that you see everywhere. Had very little merit.

3. Agree, it's sad that so many people seem to take pleasure in criticizing when they are anonymous.

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

#78

Post by mgalka »

erdevs wrote: 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…

Yes. Could have been phrased better, but it's true. For anyone who's read/heard any of his work, it's clear he's not sexist. Think the meaning he had in mind is different from how it comes off.

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

#79

Post by gilleain »

computator wrote: post #70
brador wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is all very true, however even if they _did_ want to scan them, it's not just like scanning a bunch of papers.

I sat next to a guy working on the Genizah project (https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/genizah) and saw a tiny bit of the difficulties in doing something similar.

- Presumably these clay tablets have to be handled carefully when scanned - These scans would ideally be high-resolution, requiring specialist equipment (I guess the BM has such equipment, but other institutions?) - Once scanned, the images have to be stored somewhere (for how long?) with backups, etc - To serve up the images to interested scholars, there has to be a system in place (over the web; is there authentication?; is it free?) - Collaborating with other institutions who have done the same...

So lawsuits are only one of the problems with "just" scanning and OCR-ing. Still possible, of course.

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

#80

Post by coldtea »

computator wrote: post #70
brador wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

You mean besides the scientific (or at least practical, at the current level of OCR/machine learning) impossibility of what the parent suggests?

Plus, I don't think parent asks why don't WE scan/ocr/machine learn translate them, but why the archeological community doesn't.

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