Onfim was a child who lived in Novgorod, Russia, in the 13th century. He left his notes and homework exercises scratched in soft birch bark (beresta) which was preserved in the clay soil of Novgorod. Onfim, who archaeologists believe was six or seven at the time, wrote in Old Novgorodian; besides letters and syllables, he
drew battle scenes and drawings of himself, his family, and his teacher.
i’ve seen similar ones from roman children living in what is now england, too. People have ALWAYS been people.
i love this so much, history with real people in it
see also -archeologists at hadrians wall dig up a letter from a roman soldier to his family tanking them for sending him a new pair of underwear in the mail -norse runes scattered around constantanople and several cathedrals turn out to be viking graffiti, including “this is very high” over two stories up -the oldest known joke (egyptian) and the oldest known english joke are both lowbrow sex jokes -roman gladiators had equivalents to sponsorship deals, some murals found were basically ‘gladiator brad pitt rubs himself with capelli brand olive oil, try some today’ and action figures were also found of prominent fighters for chidlren to play with -flat stone fragments left at egyptian construction sites were used as post it notes by workers, some included variations of ‘the foreman is a jerkface’ and a crude drawing of the pharoh with a comically large donger -we have an embarrassing wealth of 4,000 year old receipts referring to one specific merchant being an ass. WE KNOW HIM BY NAME, he wasnt even a king or anything,
Ea-nasir will be known through history for being a dick about refunds
I love how children, even in the 13th century, can never remember how many fingers someone has.
Oh no Ea-Nasir strikes again.
You left out the best part about the Ea-Nesir receipts! From the original post about this historic jackass:
The majority of the surviving correspondences regarding Ea-nasir
were recovered from one particular room in a building that is believed
to have been Ea-nasir’s own house.
Like, these are clay
tablets. They’re bulky, fragile, and difficult to store. They typically
weren’t kept long-term unless they contained financial records or other
vital information (which is why we have huge reams of financial data
about ancient Babylon in spite of how little we know about the actual
culture: most of the surviving tablets are commercial inventories, bills
of sale, etc.).
But this guy, this Ea-nasir, he kept all
of his angry letters – hundreds of them – and meticulously filed and
preserved them in a dedicated room in his house. What kind of guy does that?
Ea-nasir, the FUCKING LEGEND
Departing from Ea-nasir, reportedly there are surviving thirteenth century letters to students at the University of Paris saying things like “I’ve heard it’s cold, wear your scarf” or “I will not send you any money because I have been informed you never study but just sit around playing your guitar”.
what cracks me up about ea nasir is that despite all this, despite constant complaints, a clearly terrible reputation, not only did he keep all his angry letters, HE KEPT USING HIS NAME. HE DIDN’T GO TO A NEW TOWN WITH A NEW NAME, NO, HE STAYED PUT AND KEPT ON BEING EA NASIR