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3,200-year-old Egyptian tablet records excuses for why people missed work

openculture.com

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Re: 3,200-year-old Egyptian tablet records excuses for why people missed work

#311

Post by pacaro »

Archelaos wrote: post #267
layer8 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The roman calendar started the year in spring as well with March (hence the names September/October/November/December are literally the 7th/8th/9th/10th month). The Greek apparently were all over the place with the year starting in summer/fall/winter depending on region/polis.

Up until 1751 the legal year (fiscal year) in England (and its North American colonies) started at 25 March (Lady Day).

One origin story for April Fool's suggests that it's to do with getting the year wrong.

My understanding was that new years was always January, 1st, but that the year number changed on Lady Day

The UK's tax year still reflects this, starting from April 6, which both accounts (pun intended) for the year changing on Lady Day, and the transition from Julian to Gregorian calendars.

Re: 3,200-year-old Egyptian tablet records excuses for why people missed work

#312

Post by LanceJones »

jamesfisher wrote: post #198
blakesterz wrote: post #54

The original with ALL of the excuses is at the British Museum here: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/Y_EA5634

cat excuses | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn 67 ILL 49 WITH HIS BOSS 17 BREWING BEER 13 WITH AAPEHTI 8 WITH THE SCRIBE 6 MAKING REMEDIES FOR THE SCRIBE’S WIFE 5 WRAPPING (THE CORPSE OF) HIS MOTHER 5 OFFERING TO THE GOD 5 HIS WIFE WAS BLEEDING 5 FETCHING STONE FOR THE SCRIBE 4 WITH KHONS MAKING REMEDIES 4 SUFFERING WITH HIS EYE 4 OFF ABSENT 4 HIS DAUGHTER WAS BLEEDING 3 WITH HOREMWIA 3 WITH HIS BOSS DITTO 3 LIBATING TO HIS…

Only a son is worth mourning?

Re: 3,200-year-old Egyptian tablet records excuses for why people missed work

#313

Post by mensetmanusman »

divbzero wrote: post #124
ARandomerDude wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Another phenomenon I’ve found curious is the cross-cultural definition of a week as roughly a quarter moon, and correlated names for days of the week. [1] Sunday Sun Sōlis Hēlíou 日曜日 Monday Moon Lūnae Selḗnēs 月曜日 Tuesday Mars Mārtis Áreōs 火曜日 Wednesday Mercury Mercuriī Hermoû 水曜日 Thursday Jupiter Iovis Diós 木曜日 Friday Venus Veneris Aphrodítēs 金曜日 Saturday Saturn Sāturnī Krónou 土曜日 [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N…

On Venus, a day is longer than a year.

Re: 3,200-year-old Egyptian tablet records excuses for why people missed work

#314

Post by NaturalPhallacy »

praptak wrote: post #56
reaperducer wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I second the shoe-shaking ritual. Even if you keep your shoes inside. When I lived in the desert, the neighbor had work done in his yard, and every scorpion from his property moved into mine. One day I found the cat eating a scorpion in the living room. Rushed him to the emergency cat vet place, and was told that cats aren't bothered by scorpions or their stings. But don't make crunchy, meaty scorpions part of a regu…

It makes sense, there are like 100 species of scorpions in the regions where house cats were first domesticated. Cats do hunt scorpions which probably scored them some extra holiness points with the ancient Egyptians.

Still not convinced cats were domesticated. They just sort of...moved in. I never thought about how they did originate there though. Scorpions are basically cat fodder.

Re: 3,200-year-old Egyptian tablet records excuses for why people missed work

#315

Post by martinflack »

below43 wrote: post #299
davemtl wrote: post #111

We're effectively looking at somebody's notebook from 3200 years ago. Makes me wonder what our descendants would think if they were looking at our old notebooks and random text files in the next 3200 years.

They won't see anything because we store everything digitally. They will assume civilization suddenly lost the ability to write anything down.

In all seriousness, I think digital archaeology will be a huge field.

Re: 3,200-year-old Egyptian tablet records excuses for why people missed work

#318

Post by NaturalPhallacy »

naijaboiler wrote: post #225
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, IQ tests given in the 1930's and 40's(?) had the results re-scaled today, and the average IQ was 70. Note, that we're all trained today in taking IQ tests. E.g. one question asked "There are no Elephants in Germany. Munich is in Germany. How many Elephants are in Munich?" with possible answers of 0, 1, 2, 12. Back then a layman might think "Munich is a big city; I bet there's one or two in the zoo there!" and a…

IQ tests measure something, but it sure isn't intelligence it is measuring

The IQ test can only measure things dumber than it.

Re: 3,200-year-old Egyptian tablet records excuses for why people missed work

#319

Post by the_af »

dhzhzjsbevs wrote: post #228
the_af wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they, like in some Abrahamic religions to come later, considered women "impure" when they had the period, and this somehow translated to the men in the household? Wild speculation, of course.

Calm down. It's just a PMS joke.

Did I not seem calm in my reply?

Re: 3,200-year-old Egyptian tablet records excuses for why people missed work

#320

Post by the_af »

bobsmooth wrote: post #293
the_af wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they, like in some Abrahamic religions to come later, considered women "impure" when they had the period, and this somehow translated to the men in the household? Wild speculation, of course.

I think it's more likely that the men had to take over household tasks while their wives were on the rag.

Hm. Why would they have to take over? Women on their period are not invalids. Though maybe the weren't allowed to do household tasks?
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