Comment by bglazer
2 days ago
Nice article about artifacts that make the past more immediate, that allow us to connect our experiences to people hundreds or thousands of years ago.
My favorite example is the writings of Onfim, who was a little boy in the 1200s in present day Russia whose scribbling and homework were exquisitely preserved on birch bark fragments. It’s so immediately recognizable as a little boy’s endearing doodles about knights and imaginary beasts, yet its 800 years old.
Similarly, when I read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius I was struck by how normal everything seemed. While he was an Emperor the everyday banality of what he talked about going through 2,000 years ago was amazing.
Humans really haven't changed that much at all.
One of the things which really brought that into focus for me was when I was old enough to look past the flowery language of Shakespeare and understand the meaning of what the characters were going through. It first hit me when I realized that Hamlet's famous "to be or not to be" speech was really about him wanting to commit suicide, but being afraid that he might go to hell. It's not really an earth shattering insight, but as a young man it blew my mind. I had never really thought about the fact that humans living in the past might have had the same psychological struggles and problems we still have to confront to this day.
Honestly, learning about how little humans have changed throughout history has been both one of the most delightful and sad things I have learned. It's wonderful to think about the real kinship we have with people long since dead, but it's also sobering to realize we still make a lot of the same mistakes despite their example. But regardless of whether it's good or bad, I find the relatable humanity of historical people to be endlessly fascinating.
> has been both one of the most delightful and sad things I have learned
Reminds me of this exchange between an adoptive maternal figure and a troubled youth with low self-esteem.
> "[He] is a great man. [...] I don’t confuse greatness with perfection. To be great anyhow is... the higher achievement." She gave him a crooked smile. "It should give you hope, eh?”
"Huh. Block me from escape, you mean. Are you saying that no matter how screwed up I was, you’d still expect me to work wonders?" Appalling.
She considered this. "Yes," she said serenely. "In fact, since no one is perfect, it follows that all great deeds have been accomplished out of imperfection. Yet they were accomplished, somehow, all the same."
-- Mirror Dance by Lois McMaster Bujold
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We come mentally of age when we discover that the great minds of the past, whom we have patronized, are not less intelligent than we are because they happen to be dead -- Cyril Connolly, The Unquiet Grave
Does that(the patronization) happen frequently? I far more frequently witness people lionizing people of the past in all sorts of benign and malign ways.
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I guess you are quoting Woland from The Master and Margarita [1], the words he said in a show at the Variety theater.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_and_Margarita
Woland is the Satan in the novel. What he said has a deeper meaning, but superficial one is most probably wrong.
I'm sure it's been said at many points by many people, fictional or real. It's not a particularly unique insight (especially amongst historians and archeologists), though one I think that bears repeating often as it's easy to lose sight of it.
I don't know that OP was quoting a Russian satire but I'm glad you turned me onto the book, I never would have heard of it but sounds intriguing. There's a wealth of covers to choose from on eBay, Goodreads lists over 1,200 editions. I got the one with the cat holding the playing cards smoking a cigar while a topless woman sails past the moon on a flying pig. at least I think it's a pig. Published in '97 by Picador.
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For as well read as I am, I am not so clever to quote the works that have influenced me.
No, I am afraid that I was being more of a follower of Wallace here, I was being sincere with my words. I truly do marvel that humans really haven't changed that much at all.
I think they’re just saying that humans haven’t really changed much at all, if I had to guess they weren’t referencing any one quote. The only thing that’s really changed is the tools we can use, but we’ve made little (some would say backwards compared to certain reference points) progress in why and what we use them for.
I’ve had similar feeling when realizing that the bells that we sometimes hear in old cities of Europe are exact same bells producing exact same sound as 1000 years ago
Or the rune-rods which were "the medieval snapchat" https://www.nrk.no/vestland/gamle_-norske-ord-for-kjonnsorga... (google translate isn't half bad on this article)
or a more PG version https://sprakprat.no/2017/06/22/middelalderkvinner-og-runeku... where a rune-rod simply says "Gyda says you have to come home" (I guess hubby had been out too late with his no-good friends?)
Wow, haven't seen this before, thank you. Amazing that the writing can still be read by a modern reader (that said, really helps to know what it's supposed to say though). The note I found most relatable is the one with greetings to his classmate.
Do some eyebrows convey emotion or coincidence? (near bottom of page)
Edit: I'm also curious how much time (thousands of years) for there to be noticeable difference in the capability of the brain like abstract thinking. Language may be the real problem.
> I'm also curious how much time (thousands of years) for there to be noticeable difference in the capability of the brain like abstract thinking.
It's not thousands of years. French Canadians are enriched for some of the same brain-related defects that Ashkenazi Jews can get; we assume for the same reasons.
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Wonderful, here's another similar example I saw recently, 14000 year old cave art doodling by kids: https://www.science.org/content/article/enigmatic-cave-art-w...
Kids had school 800 years ago? If he didn't work in the fields musta been rich
insert David Lynch quote about red ants
It seems like that region had a particularly high literacy rate. Texts from all classes and genders were found. The kid could have been a peasant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novgorod_Republic#Literature_a...
How likely is that vs works written by the rich folk survive? A cursory GPT search implies not a lot of medieval works written by poor people in general
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Not as old, but I loved reading about this:
350 year old paper cuttings found under Sutton House floorboards go on display [0]
It really feels immediate
[0] https://museumsandheritage.com/advisor/posts/350-year-old-pa...
I like the adorable animal shaped sippy cups for babies:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/25/science/prehistoric-baby-...
I like the extreme modesty in the wikipedia article:
> One of the drawings features a knight on a horse, with Onfim's name written next to him, stabbing someone on the ground with a lance, with scholars speculating that Onfim pictured himself as the knight.