Pikkulog

A shorter weblog for rambly things.

2022-03-16 (Wed)

Last December I was browsing a museum shop and ended up buying a replica Babylonian clay tablet. The original is now in the British Museum, and it's a record of a grant of land by the king Nabu-aplu-iddina to a priest of the same name. The tablet is dated to the 20th year of his reign, which works out to something like 866 BC. It is literally more than 2,500 years old.

What drew me to it? In December I was reading Graeber and Wengrow's *The Dawn of Everything*, and thinking about other ways in which things could be. Coming across the tablet again - it was not the first time I had seen the replica for sale - it suddenly seemed entirely apropos. Over 2,500 years later and we have not been able to transcend the idea that property in land, "real" property ("real" deriving from royalty, rather than from reality) is a grant from the sovereign. We dress it up more, but at root...

The replica I bought now sits, appropriately enough, on my desk at work. One day, when I can move into my own home, I intend to place it somewhere for display.

2022-03-15 (Tue)

How did we get to March already? It's almost a quarter of a year gone. Work has been busy, and there's been a bit of an upheaval -- lots of people are suddenly leaving, and I've finally gotten my things in order and I'm planning to leave, too. I've been where I am for too long.

It helps as well, I suppose, that a good portion of my team is changing. I've been lucky to have good coworkers, and that counted for a lot; now that certain people are leaving, there's finally less reason for me to stay.

EOF