The Worst Businessman of the 18th Century BC (2018)

[Razengan]

I just love this:

> “The copper of mine, give it to Nigga-Nanna – good copper, in order that my heart shall not be troubled.”

> “May Samas bless your life. ... In order that your heart shall not be troubled, give good copper to him.”

“May your heart not be troubled..” It’s just a small sample of letters, but it seems people from 4000 years ago had better empathy than us.

Why do we not show each other this kind of courtesy any more? Why do most of our interactions today seek to upset someone or become upset instead of seeking accord?

[dmcdm]

Really? I take this as evidence indicating basically the opposite - fundamental human nature, as reflected through our communications and business practices, hasn't changed significantly in thousands of years. Some folks might be courteous, giving others the benefit of the doubt in hopes they'll "catch more flies with honey" or, more-likely, due to pervasive social norms and taboos. Others might issue thinly-veiled or direct threats, hoping to coerce the desired outcome. Either way, there have been shady business people and the ripped-off, the scammers and the scammed, for going on 4 millennia, at the very least, and there really is no sign the status quo going to change. If anything, this should dispel our romances of the human condition. The form is immaterial to the underlying function of the communication. "I feel ripped off, please deliver the goods."

~1800 years later, and 2 millennia ago, the graffiti at Pompeii http://www.pompeiana.org/Resources/Ancient/Graffiti%20from%2... tells a similar (and somewhat more humorous) story but in a different context.

[bandrami]

> but it seems people from 4000 years ago had better empathy than us.

I see you're not from the South. Ask someone who is what "bless your heart" actually means.

[jml7c5]

I would be very wary of reading too much into the tone of a translation, especially when the language has been dead for so long.

[geekpowa]

I think you are lensing this through your own cultural filters/assumptions.

My first reading is as a veiled threat: honour our agreement or I bring trouble to your heart.

[tempguy9999]

I'd guess it's a convention of that society, and means no more than our (peculiar, in my view) manner of the writing of some letters starting "Dear Sir" and ending "I remain faithfully yours ...", or similar words.

I think this may be a register (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Register_%28sociolinguistics%2...)

[scarejunba]

Oh but we do. See, for instance, the forms of phrase "with all due respect", "bless your heart", and "oh you sweet summer child". Full of respect, kindness, and compassion.

Sometimes, when people make mistakes, people from 2019 remind them that they're like the great thinker Einstein, a sign that even though they believe the person erred, everyone believes that they are still capable of acting with great intelligence.

Truly, looking back two thousand years to the language of 2019 CE (near the invention of the Internet), one of us 5th-millennials must only conclude that true compassion began with that great sharing that was possible when all of Man could speak to all of Man over a single network.

[friedman23]

The reason why we don't show any form of courtesy anymore is because there is no community. There are so many people on this planet suffering so much injustice that we may as well be ants to each other.

[wolfhumble]

The city of Ur Kaśdim (Ur of the Chaldeans) is the birthplace of Jewish patriarch Abraham. 1)

It was identified with Tell el-Muqayyar by Henry Rawlinson in 1862, situated near Nasiriyah in southern Iraq. 2)

1) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+11%3A31...

2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ur_of_the_Chaldees

[elihu]

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15669759

[csomar]

"the work that you have done is soooooooo good."

How did they translate the "soooooooo" part? Were ancient people really using this kind of tone?

[Razengan]

A particularly long line perhaps?

I suppose that must have been one way to be passive aggressive in cuneiform.

[StandardFuture]

This is actually really entertaining. I thought I had read somewhere that there are thousands of untranslated ancient Sumerian/Babylonian/Akkadian tablets. Does anyone know if this is true?

[Bayart]

AFAIK most of what's been in European collections for ages hasn't even been transcribed. I remember Irving Finkel lamenting the utter lack of Assyriologists.

[dilippkumar]

Slightly off-topic.

Ever since I came across the Proto-Zagrosian hypothesis [0] [1] and subsequent dravidian linguistics papers [2], I can’t stop looking at words like Ur and not make a mental connection.

Even some of the names here sound more plausible if I mentally substitute the letters with equivalent dravidian alphabets.

I was browsing Google maps around my home town and I coundn’t stop seeing the root words - Bangalore (Bangal - Ur), Mysore (Mys- Ur), Hosur (Hos - Ur), Coimbatore- (Coimbat - Ur).

I have no training in linguistics so I’m going to admit that many of these are probably just words that look similar. Any dravidian linguists here want to chime in?

I’m really excited to see how studies in Proto-Zagrosian evolve and what new connections we might find from it.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elamo-Dravidian_languages

[1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7817/jameroriesoci.135.3.551...

[2] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12284-011-9076-9

[twic]

This Ea-Nasir guy was certainly no Kushim. Kushim would never mess you around like that!

[Razengan]

If this were Reddit you could bank mad karma by saying something about EA screwing people over for 3800 years.

[ouid]

Do I need to update my filters? Why can forbes detect my adblocker?

[dang]

Please don't take HN threads into partisan flamewar.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[friedman23]

Thanks for the explanation.

[baot]

I hear Softbank are offering 20 billion