IIRC "books" were a medieval-period invention. Before the common era, everythign would have been scrolls or tablets. The first codices wouldn't have existed until about 100BCE in Rome. So, assuming that this is (roughly) what a cuneiform tablet was saying, I wonder what the actual work used for 'book' was, and what more accurate translation there would be, if we had the relevant cultural understanding?
But, more so than that - the earliest proto-novel that we know of is The Tale of Genji, that dates to roughly the 11th century
BCE (Edit: this is a typo; it is definitely CE, not BCE). Which makes the question of what kind of 'books' this is supposed to refer to even more interesting.Or--alternatively--is it just a shitpost?
96The Tale of Gengi is for 11th century CE, not BCE.
I'm pretty sure this tablet is fake, but I do remember how similar people in those times were to us when I read the translated tablets from that period. One that I remember most was talking about a parent who tried to bribe a teacher to give his son better grades.
44Don't forget the Egyptian tablet recording work absences from 1250 BCE. Not much has changed.
21
TL;DR: it's probably not Assyrian at least, and it's likely either a mistranslation of something or a complete fabrication
24I found this on skeptics stack exchange. Supposedly, it's a hoax/urban legend that goes back way before the internet. (The entire stack exchange page on this topic is fun to read, btw)
The quote originally came from Prof. George T.W. Patrick of University of Iowa, who translated an ancient stone tablet into modern English and published in "Popular Science Monthly", May 1913. The full text of the original can be found online at archive.org: https://archive.org/details/popularsciencemo82newy, page 493.
One writer found this same quote in a slightly earlier source dating to 1908.
Yet another writer noted that there was no Chaldea but ...
... there was a stele of a King Naram-Sin of Akkad which has been exhibited in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum since 1892. The inscription on this stele is fragmentary and has nothing to do with degeneration.
21Assyria didn't exist in 2800 BCE, either.
7I wanted to give it credit and think "maybe it was from the region that would become Assyria," but, sadly, it's just the Internet lying.
3
maybe it's "writing scrolls", but this meme just swapped in the word book.. it's just the idea that instead of actually going out and achieving something new, people are satisfied with being commentators on the important events of the past..
3Even if that's correct--which it would likely be, since a literal translation wouldn't be meaningful to a modern audience--the corollary problem is that the very idea of writing stories that were stories, versus oral myths/religion, or more purely informative, didn't really exist at this time. I don't think that we even have evidence that theatrical entertainment existed 2800 BCE; the golden age of Greek plays was around 700 BCE, which is a solid 2000 years later than this was purported to have been written.
1
earliest proto-novel that we know of is The Tale of Genji, that dates to roughly the 11th century
What makes it a proto novel compared to Greek or Indian mythology texts?
3
he was right.. their world did end..
you can't get even decent Assyrian Ale anywhere these days
64Everyone wants to write a book? in 2000 BCE? gonna need a citation on this one
42Everyone wants to write a book but they are waiting for books to be invented first.
152800BC!
Let's give the proper respect to the people who invented it.
4Assyria wasnt even around in 2800
3
The writing on this tablet being from a time when his civilization was collapsing. The only change to make his words 100% correct would be "as we know it."
28Other than the fact the Assyrians didn't collapse until 600 BC and it wasn't for any of those reasons.
Of course, Assyria also didn't exist in 2800 BC so the meme probably meant 800-600 BC for a 2800 year old tablet, but STILL, the old man yelling at clouds was wrong.
15https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyria
If the image is true at all, the year mentioned is about 200 years prior to Assyria even being formed. This closely coincides with one of the pre-Assyrian collapse (or massive shift) periods where the society changed a great deal.
Hence "as we know it."
4
As you may know, this is the entire premise of fall of civilizations podcast, which also did a great episode on the Assyrians:
https://podcastaddict.com/fall-of-civilizations-podcast/episode/124415257
2
I love ancient "kids these days". They make me feel better about kids these days.
22To be fair, it was only a couple millenia later that they were conquered by the Babylonians, so he had a point.
16Hey... I wanna write a book!
jk, lol, I just wanna write a comment on Lemmy.Now substitute "every man wants to write a book" with
Every man wants to post cat pictures
Every man wants to write a twitter rant
Every man wants to film a tiktok challenge12No one will dig up our Lemmy posts in 1000s of years. :(
9So much for "The internet is forever, Mark, it's written in ink."
5Time to start printing all your shitposts, so they last at least 100 years
4That's not true. Internet scrapers will be pulling ancient data from decrepit servers long after humanity has taken its last breath.
4
Make Assyria Great Again
9Same as it ever was
3Same as it ever was
3
Well, Assyria isn't anymore...
2Just because people complained about something in the past doesn't mean it's not a problem.
That said, alt-right types who want to get all "woe is me" "society has degenerated" are pathetic. They're just as addicted to helplessness and being a victim as the "woke" progressives they bully. Just touch grass and move to a conservative place. They also can't do that because they don't want to submit themselves to God and so they can't live with religious conservatives.
1Time is relative. If the end is coming in 5000 years it will be only a moment in a universe which is billions of years old.
113.8 billion years old.
1
