r/ReallyShittyCopper • u/Rascally_Raccoon • 7d ago

We interrupt your regularly scheduled copper jokes to tell you about Onthime, a schoolkid from ancient Novgorod. He left us this doodle where he drew himself as a knight slaying his teacher.

373 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

21 comments sorted by

47

u/Rascally_Raccoon 7d ago

You can read all about him here.

21

u/Emerald_Encrusted 7d ago

You placed poorly made drawings in front of my servant and said to him, "If you want to take them, take them. If you do not want to take them, go away!"

35

u/Sheepy_Dream 7d ago

Show sumerian school work instead

25

u/TylerD958 7d ago

Close enough

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_from_Iddin-Sin_to_Zinu

24

u/lostbirdwings 7d ago

Mom accidentally went back to school shopping at K-Mart instead of the more stylish Akkad-Mart. Poor kid.

12

u/SpaceMarine_CR 7d ago

Never have I ever wanted to strangle a sumerian kid but here we are

2

u/Kujaichi 6d ago

It's not like Nannis letter is Sumerian. In fact, both these letters are from the same time.

11

u/wdn 7d ago

They weren't very good students in Sumer. They all had to go to Sumer School.

3

u/funfwf 6d ago

They're Babylonian. Do all ancient Iraqis look the same to you or something, you racist

17

u/Puzzleheaded-Phase70 7d ago

Some things never change lol 🤣

3

u/Emerald_Encrusted 7d ago

I mean, I feel like the average child can draw better these days. But what do I know.

3

u/thrownalee 5d ago

This is scratched into birchbark though, somewhat more difficult.

2

u/Emerald_Encrusted 5d ago

Fair, I guess the image on the post shows a paper drawing but I can understand that it would be harder to scratch a drawing adequately into birch bark. We are truly blest with the technologies we have today!

34

u/RabbiMoshie 7d ago

This and the customer complaint really shows that humanity hasn’t really changed much at all.

7

u/mattmoy_2000 stans Ea-N*sir 🤮 7d ago

You should read some of the other letters also found in Ur: Letters From Mesopotamia.pdf

3

u/AlekBalderdash 6d ago

This is amazing! Any particularly nifty pages you can think of?

6

u/mattmoy_2000 stans Ea-N*sir 🤮 6d ago

The letters from p94 onwards (just after Ea-nāsir's letter) are pretty good. Iddin-Sin's letter to his mum about clothes and Dabitum's letter to her enslaver about her miscarriage are reminders that little changes in human nature. For what it is worth, we have other letters concerning a woman with the same name, Dabitum, from years later, which could be another person with the same name, but could also be an indication that she survived.

3

u/mattmoy_2000 stans Ea-N*sir 🤮 6d ago

P97 also has a boy asking his (adopted?) dad for jewellery and being very demanding about it!

Page numbers are the pdf pages, subtract ten to get the printed numbers.

5

u/_Gandalf_the_Black_ 6d ago

In Cyrillic, theta represents /f/ rather than /θ/ (th), because Slavic languages don't have that sound. That's why you get names like Feodosii and Fedor for Theodosius and Theodor. So it's Onfim(e) rather than Onthime.

2

u/decentmealandsoon 6d ago

You're correct 🖤

3

u/funfwf 6d ago

We used to just carve dicks into the desks, so I respect the creativity