Onfim was a child who lived in Novgorod, Russia, in the 13th century. He left his notes and homework exercises scratched in soft birch bark (beresta) which was preserved in the clay soil of Novgorod. Onfim, who archaeologists believe was six or seven at the time, wrote in Old Novgorodian; besides letters and syllables, he drew battle scenes and drawings of himself, his family, and his teacher. [x]
Here is a picture of him as a knight stabbing someone.
(At least, he wrote his name next to the knight. Either it was supposed to be him or he was signing his masterpiece. Either way, still adorable.)
Several pictures of the original birch pieces can be found here: Â [x]
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âpeople have always been peopleâ
iâve seen similar ones from roman children living in what is now england, too. People have ALWAYS been people.
i love this so much, history with real people in it see also -archeologists at hadrians wall dig up a letter from a roman soldier to his family tanking them for sending him a new pair of underwear in the mail -norse runes scattered around constantanople and several cathedrals turn out to be viking graffiti, including âthis is very highâ over two stories up -the oldest known joke (egyptian) and the oldest known english joke are both lowbrow sex jokes -roman gladiators had equivalents to sponsorship deals, some murals found were basically âgladiator brad pitt rubs himself with capelli brand olive oil, try some todayâ and action figures were also found of prominent fighters for chidlren to play with -flat stone fragments left at egyptian construction sites were used as post it notes by workers, some included variations of âthe foreman is a jerkfaceâ and a crude drawing of the pharoh with a comically large donger -we have an embarrassing wealth of 4,000 year old receipts referring to one specific merchant being an ass. WE KNOW HIM BY NAME, he wasnt even a king or anything, Ea-nasir will be known through history for being a dick about refunds
I love how children, even in the 13th century, can never remember how many fingers someone has.Â
Oh no Ea-Nasir strikes again.
You left out the best part about the Ea-Nesir receipts! From the original post about this historic jackass:
The majority of the surviving correspondences regarding Ea-nasir were recovered from one particular room in a building that is believed to have been Ea-nasirâs own house.
Like, these are clay tablets. Theyâre bulky, fragile, and difficult to store. They typically werenât kept long-term unless they contained financial records or other vital information (which is why we have huge reams of financial data about ancient Babylon in spite of how little we know about the actual culture: most of the surviving tablets are commercial inventories, bills of sale, etc.).
But this guy, this Ea-nasir, he kept all of his angry letters - hundreds of them - and meticulously filed and preserved them in a dedicated room in his house. What kind of guy does that?
Ea-nasir, the FUCKING LEGEND
