Three Key Quotes

This descrip­tion of a Swedish Viking’s funeral in the 10th cen­tury was writ­ten by Ibn Fad­lan, an Arab trav­eler, who saw it first hand:
One day I learnt that one of their chief­tains had died. He was placed apart in a grave which was cov­ered over for ten days until cloth­ing for him had been cut out …

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 …