Three Key Quotes

These two quotes are from The Mam­moth Book of Eye-Witness His­to­ries, edited by Jon E. Lewis. They are both trans­la­tions from the orig­i­nal texts:

A Schoolboy’s Day, Sumer, c. 2000 BC

Anony­mous

[The Sume­ri­ans of Mesopotamia (now Iraq), built the first cities, the first state. They invented writ­ing and the for­mal edu­ca­tion of children.]

Arriv­ing at school in the morn­ing I recited my tablet, ate my lunch, pre­pared my new tablet, wrote it, fin­ished it, then they assigned me my oral work…When school was dis­missed, I went home, entered the house, and found my father sit­ting there. I told my father of my writ­ten work, then recited my tablet to him, and my father was delighted.

p.6

Hunt­ing Croc­o­diles, Egypt, c. 450 BC

Herodotus

Some of the Egyp­tians hold the croc­o­dile as sacred, but oth­ers do not, and hunt it as an enemy. Those that live in the neigh­borhour­hood of Thebes and the lake of Moeris con­sider it to be extremely sacred. Each com­mu­nity rears one croc­o­dile which is trained to come to hand; they put glass and gold orna­ments on its ears and bracelets on its front feet, giv­ing it spe­cial food and divine offer­ings, and treat­ing it extremely well as long as it lives. On its death it is embalmed and placed in sacred coffins. But the inhab­i­tants of the city of Ele­phan­tine do not think of them as sacred, and even eat them…

p. 7

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