Ancient storytellers who open windows to the past
Forest of Distraction #3
“Ever since we added language to our tried-and-true communication system of grunting, hand gestures, and evocative facial expressions (insert image of eyebrow-waggling Neanderthal here), every story that ever got through to anyone, convincing them of something they didn’t already believe, did it by connecting to their experience. Story was the key to our survival, and every savvy storyteller knew that—how else could they have convinced their tribe that it’s better to harness fire than to run from it?”― Lisa Cron, Story or Die: How to Use Brain Science to Engage, Persuade, and Change Minds in Business and in Life
More and more, I am fascinated by ancient history, which we can only see through the darkest of mirrors. Whole civilizations have come and gone before us, their existence marked only through a broken shard of pottery, a bit of etched stone, paint that time has nearly worn away. Even when more substantial relics are left behind, like the Kenyan city of Gede (below), the people who lived there are often little more than shadows. My imagination loves to play in those shadows – how were the people who lived then different from us, I wonder, and how were they the same?
When ancient history collides with my passion for study of narrative, then it’s like a bonanza for my brain. People have been telling stories for about as long as there has been language, and the urge to record them seems to be almost as old, as our other distractions highlight for you this week.
And yes, I’ll be naming my next pet Enheduanna.
History’s First Recorded Author was a Woman
“History’s first recorded author was a woman named Enheduanna. Born sometime in the latter half of the 23rd century BC, Enheduanna was the high priestess of the ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur. It was a political role as well as a religious one; as the daughter of a powerful king, Enheduanna was no stranger to affairs of the state. In her writing, she wielded her pen for peace, working to unite a fractured kingdom.”
“Sometimes, you’re reading about these people in a textbook or in an article, and you don’t get a first-person narrative, right? These texts are extracted and then put together by a scholar. But in the process of doing this research and reading The Exaltation, Enheduanna refers to herself in the first person. It’s her story. There’s a strength in her words, in her conviction. You can see her passion. It was a nice reminder that she was a person and had feelings and motives and emotions and passion. It’s a powerful and eerie feeling because you’re hearing the voice of someone long gone.” (Atlas Obscura)
Neolithic Netflix
“A wall relief, comprising five figures carved on a bench in a communal building dating to the ninth millennium BC, was found in south-eastern Turkey in 2021. It constitutes the earliest known depiction of a narrative ‘scene’, and reflects the complex relationship between humans, the natural world and the animal life that surrounded them during the transition to a sedentary lifestyle.” (Antiquity)
“In the carving, a six-fingered, squatting human waves what looks like a snake or rattle at a sharp-horned bull in one of the two scenes. ‘It seems to reflect the struggle between two creatures,’ Özdoğan says. In the other scene, two leopards flank a person depicted facing forward, and clutching an erect penis—in what Özdoğan calls ‘an indifferent stance’ in the face of danger. It’s unclear whether the panels are meant to be viewed independently or in sequence, but they convey a shifting attitude toward nature, Özdoğan proposes, as nomadic communities settled down. The struggle with the bull and the indifference toward leopards, respectively, may bookend a story about people learning to subdue wild creatures, the author suggests.” (Science)
Only the Stones Remain
“Gedi is one of Kenya's great little known treasures, an astonishing vanished metropolis lying at the heart of the immense Arabuko Sokoke forest sixty miles away from Mombassa, Kenya’s second city. It is moreover a site of enormous mystery, an archaeological enigma that to this day creates intense discussion between historians. Who built in and why did they leave?
“Now only the stones remain, protected, it is said, by the spirits of those who once lived here. These people, whose names are hidden from history, were a sophisticated group to say the very least. As well as building their town which housed over three thousand people at its height, this creative community traded with the then known world.”(Kuriositas)