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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

#381

Post by blippage »

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…

Reminds me of the #1 reason for a day off work in Australia: possum attack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0ytDTcsuYM

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

#382

Post by junon »

londons_explore wrote: post #361
spiralx wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of those are related to death: 5 WRAPPING (THE CORPSE OF) HIS MOTHER 2 WRAPPING (THE CORPSE OF) HIS SON 1 EMBALMING HORMOSE 1 EMBALMING HIS BROTHER 1 MOURNING HIS SON 3 LIBATING TO HIS FATHER 13 and I suspect most of these: 8 WITH THE SCRIBE 1 OFF ABSENT WITH THE SCRIBE 5 FETCHING STONE FOR THE SCRIBE 2 FETCHING STONE FOR QENHERKHEPSHEF 1 LIBATING FOR HIS SON 1 LIBATING FOR HIM 1 LIBATING 2 BURYING THE GOD 21 a…

Remember this is translated by archaeologists, and most of them go into the profession thinking about mummies. I suspect whenever they come across a symbol they don't understand to translate, they might just assume it means "ooh, it must mean wrapping my father"! TL;DR:. Translator bias could be hitting hard...

Do you have any authority on the subject of archeological academic misconduct or are you speculating?

No, archeologists do not go into the field "thinking about mummies". This isn't Hollywood.

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

#383

Post by pyuser583 »

dennis_jeeves1 wrote: post #341
pyuser583 wrote: post #279

I shared this with my 11 year old daughter. She says these people are very lazy, and missing work for bad reasons.

The things that modern education does...

My daughter is very harsh on people she considers lazy.

We were watching interviews with people in Ukraine whose towns have become war zones.

The first person worked at the local steel plant. He had to dodge bullets on the way to work.

His next door neighbor was a lawyer for the local airport. The Russians took over the airport, and she doesn’t have a job. She said there’s no work for anybody.

My daughter shouts, “There is work! The guys next door works at a steel plant! You could work at the steel plant! You just think because you’re a lawyer you’re too good to work at a factory!”

And I’m sitting there going like … wow that’s freaking harsh.

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

#384

Post by istinetz »

dleslie wrote: post #261
istinetz wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate the guts to seriously bring up ancient aliens on hackernews.

I don't support that theory at all, and didn't mention it. I even gave a completely reasonable explanation why they might not want to discuss it.

I'm sorry, I thought

>or they didn't build them.

implied somebody else built the pyramids.

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

#385

Post by com »

LawnGnome wrote: post #168
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?

The Noongar of south western Australia denote six seasons: http://www.bom.gov.au/iwk/calendars/nyoongar.shtml

Makuru was much more suitable than “winter” for the climate in Perth: time to rug up and settle in for cosy nights with your loved ones. I wish the Noongar seasons were more often used in the south west of Australia by everybody, so much more suitable than European seasons shifted 6 months!

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

#386

Post by dr_dshiv »

dleslie wrote: post #289
dr_dshiv wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that papyrus is bonkers. Imagine what still exists out there in the desert!

We can only hope there's one that details the process of the laying of the stones.

Or the landing of the spacecraft :)

Papyrus describing laying is unlikely unless it somehow related to accounting.

But, do you know the Shabakti stone? That is supposedly a copy of a first dynasty papyrus by the Nubian pharaohs. While likely to be embellished, no reason not to believe. Helps describe the role of Ptah, the god of design.

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

#387

Post by bryanrasmussen »

FredPret wrote: post #127
adamsmith143 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure 300K TC seems impressive relative to the Barista you buy your Latte from but it pales in comparison to the amount that people like Zuckerburg, Musk, Bezos, etc have increased their wealth in the past 2 years for example, which is on the order of 10s of Billions. You are far closer to the homeless you guy step over on the way to Twitter HQ than to Jack Dorsey and sure if you deliver a great result this quarter ma…

It’s not relative. 300k buys you a fantastic life. You’ll never be in the 0.1% with a job vs owning assets, but these jobs are amazing by any measure, and a world away from being poor. The very rich having astronomical amounts of money has zero negative effect on the day to day of the middle class - we don’t have a limited money supply. You may say it buys them outsized influence, but media companies will always have…

speaking from experience 300K buys you a fantastic life most of the time, but there can be problems that would be solved with more money but are unsolvable at the 300K level.

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

#388

Post by neycoda »

Oh, excuses, not reasons? So any reason to miss work is an excuse, huh? "My baby's being born!"... EXCUSE! "I'm sick and I don't want to infect others" - EXCUSE! "My leg broke when someone's camel ran into mine" - EXCUSE!

Maybe working for a living is an excuse too and not a reason?

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

#389

Post by neycoda »

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…

It's really anti-worker to consider reasons to miss work (legit ones, allowed ones, necessary ones) "excuses". As if everyone's supposed to work all the time and any time off is non-legit.

What a poor way to view workers... the article really is casting workers in a bad light when that's the opposite of what we need.

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

#390

Post by neycoda »

spiralx wrote: post #223
jamesfisher wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A lot of those are related to death: 5 WRAPPING (THE CORPSE OF) HIS MOTHER 2 WRAPPING (THE CORPSE OF) HIS SON 1 EMBALMING HORMOSE 1 EMBALMING HIS BROTHER 1 MOURNING HIS SON 3 LIBATING TO HIS FATHER 13 and I suspect most of these: 8 WITH THE SCRIBE 1 OFF ABSENT WITH THE SCRIBE 5 FETCHING STONE FOR THE SCRIBE 2 FETCHING STONE FOR QENHERKHEPSHEF 1 LIBATING FOR HIS SON 1 LIBATING FOR HIM 1 LIBATING 2 BURYING THE GOD 21 a…

Yah, exactly, they're not excuses, they're reasons, and apparently allowed and understood.

Whoever wrote that article is really anti-worker and probably a trash person.

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