161–170 of 421 posts
Also there’s just some that are funny given cultural norms today - I’m assuming it was more akin to taking bereavement leave, but imagining telling my boss I won’t be working because I’ll be drinking for 3 days is pretty comical to me:
day 24 (LIBATING TO HIS FATHER), day 25 (DITTO), day 26(?) (DITTO)
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My family lived in Texas for a time when my sister was younger and she stepped out of the shower one day and was stung on the head by a scorpion that was in her towel. Hearing that story I was certainly very vigilant, even paranoid perhaps, about checking my shoes and such when we went to visit family there when I was a kid.
A buddy grew up in Mexico. When he was 10 or so, he pissed on a wall and got stung in just about the worst place imaginable. I don't live around scorpions and now I keep an even larger distance between me and peeing-surfaces lol
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Interesting that the dates are "Month 3 of Summer, Day 24" etc. The curious bit to me being the enduring use of 4 distinct seasons, when there are obviously other ways to mark a year. Is anyone aware of a culture that did/does not have exactly 4 seasons?
> Is anyone aware of a culture that did/does not have exactly 4 seasons? Ancient Egyptian :-) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_calendar : “The ancient Egyptian calendar – a civil calendar – was a solar calendar with a 365-day year. The year consisted of three seasons of 120 days each, plus an intercalary month of five epagomenal days treated as outside of the year proper. Each season was divided into four month…
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Interesting that the dates are "Month 3 of Summer, Day 24" etc. The curious bit to me being the enduring use of 4 distinct seasons, when there are obviously other ways to mark a year. Is anyone aware of a culture that did/does not have exactly 4 seasons?
I once heard Canadians in Winnipeg joke there were but two seasons, Winter and Construction. I think this was in reference to road maintenance. In NZ these days I feel like we have two: Drought and Mudslide.
I feel sorry for the poor guys who never missed a day of work and gave their all to building that damn pyramid, 3200 years later nobody even knows who they were.
Said nobody on their death cot ever, “I wish I’d spent more time carving hieroglyphs down at the Pharoah’s tomb!”
That actually may not be true. Pharaoh was a religious figure, considered to be god on earth. He was also the embodiment of Osiris, the god of the afterlife, and Egyptians' conception of the afterlife was linked to Pharaoh, and their prospects for the afterlife were linked to how close they were to Pharaoh. Thus just like it would not be unheard of to hear someone say on their deathbed that they wished they had gone to church more, etc, there were probably people on their deathbed who wished they did more for Pharaoh (including spending more time carving hieroglyphs for his tomb).
The original with ALL of the excuses is at the British Museum here: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/Y_EA5634
The original with ALL of the excuses is at the British Museum here: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/Y_EA5634
Interesting that the dates are "Month 3 of Summer, Day 24" etc. The curious bit to me being the enduring use of 4 distinct seasons, when there are obviously other ways to mark a year. Is anyone aware of a culture that did/does not have exactly 4 seasons?
> But how well would it fly if you were to plead the need to feast, to embalm your brother, or to make an offering to a god? Vacation, funerals, religious holy-days?
I do this. Recently took some time off for Pascha (Russian Easter), and made a portion of the request in Old Church Slavonic
Feels funny to read this. Always thought that Pascha was a Jewish holiday, which was later eclipsed by Easter (The Last Supper that Jesus had with his disciples was them celebrating the Pascha)