{"id":7364,"date":"2015-11-21T23:36:47","date_gmt":"2015-11-22T04:36:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=7364"},"modified":"2015-11-21T23:36:47","modified_gmt":"2015-11-22T04:36:47","slug":"a-canticle-for-gal-sal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=7364","title":{"rendered":"A canticle for Gal Sal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of my favorite science fiction novels is <em>A Canticle for Leibowitz<\/em> by Walter M. Miller Jr. In the distant post-apocalyptic future that is the setting of the novel, a piece of sacred memorabilia attributed to the founder of a monastic order, Isaac Edward Leibowitz, is in fact a 20th century shopping list.<\/p>\n<p>As it turns out, something similar exists in real life. However, Gal Sal was no saint; he was the owner of two slaves, En-pap X and Sukkalgir. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cranberryletters.com\/home\/2014\/4\/14\/the-first-men-in-history\">Their names are recorded<\/a> on a more than 5,000 year old clay tablet that probably served as a receipt or title of sorts.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cranberryletters.com\/home\/2014\/4\/14\/the-first-men-in-history\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-7365\" src=\"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/OIM-A2513.png\" alt=\"OIM-A2513\" width=\"201\" height=\"199\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/OIM-A2513.png 201w, https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/OIM-A2513-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/OIM-A2513-96x96.png 96w, https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/OIM-A2513-24x24.png 24w, https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/OIM-A2513-36x36.png 36w, https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/OIM-A2513-48x48.png 48w, https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/OIM-A2513-64x64.png 64w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 201px) 100vw, 201px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Though the dates are somewhat uncertain and there are other tablets of similar age, this trio may be the first people in history whose names have been preserved for posterity.<\/p>\n<p>No heroic deeds. No epic battles. No dealings with gods or otherwordly spirits.<\/p>\n<p>Just a receipt. Bureaucracy may, after all, be the oldest profession.<\/p>\n<fb:like href='https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=7364' send='true' layout='standard' show_faces='true' width='450' height='65' action='like' colorscheme='light' font='lucida grande'><\/fb:like>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of my favorite science fiction novels is A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr. In the distant post-apocalyptic future that is the setting of the novel, a piece of sacred memorabilia attributed to the founder of a monastic order, Isaac Edward Leibowitz, is in fact a 20th century shopping list. As it <a href='https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=7364' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-history","category-40-id","category-25-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7364"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7367,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7364\/revisions\/7367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}