I am looking at images of nearly 4000 year old clay tablets.
Clay tablets like Si.427, depicting a survey of land. And incidentally, also demonstrating the use of the theorem of Pythagoras well over a thousand years before Pythagoras was born.
If only I had a time machine… To witness how these people lived. How they laughed, how they cried. They studied, the learned, they applied what they knew. They built a magnificent civilization. They loved and they hated, they offered sacrifices and committed betrayals. They had fun, they enjoyed a good meal, they entertained. They lived.
And we know so little about them. What did they do for fun? What were they talking about at the dinner table? What were their hopes for their children? What did they know about the world? What were their trades? How did they pass on their knowledge to others? Did they travel? Did they enjoy a day of rest at the beach?
All gone. An entire civilization, that was routinely using artifacts with precision diagrams like this tablet. All gone and almost completely forgotten, other than these bits and pieces, these fragments.
It’s humbling.