Ancient Egyptians Had Sick Notes 🍺🦂 #shorts

Over 3,000 years ago, an Egyptian scribe kept a list of every tomb worker who skipped work... and the excuses were amazing. 🍺🦂

The list is a big flake of limestone (an "ostracon") from year 40 of Pharaoh Ramesses II, about 1250 BC, probably from Deir el-Medina, the village of the workmen who built the royal tombs. It records 40 workers' absences over 280 days: brewing beer, a scorpion sting, sore eyes, embalming dead relatives... and one man "carrying stones for the scribe". Today it is in the British Museum (EA 5634).

Sources:
• British Museum, ostracon EA 5634: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/Y_EA5634
• CSMC Hamburg, Manuscript of the Month 54, "Stung by a scorpion": https://www.csmc.uni-hamburg.de/publications/aom/mom/54-en.html
• J. J. Janssen, "Absence from work by the necropolis workmen of Thebes" (1980)
• R. J. Demarée, Ramesside Ostraca (British Museum Press, 2002)

Animated with AI tools. Narration is an AI voice.

#ancientegypt #history #shorts