Who has not dreamed of traveling to the past? To land in ancient Egypt, Babylon, or Jerusalem millennia ago? Witness historical events and meet geniuses that are long gone?
There are several ways to approach time travel. One is to book a flight to Rome, Cairo, or Paris and see ancient monuments with one's own eyes.
Another can be done from home, daydreaming while reading a book, watching a documentary, or a movie.
There is a third way, where one can feel the past and come face-to-face with historical figures: entering an actual time machine—a museum.
Museums are democratic gifts to mankind
We already wandered together, dear reader, in Alexandria, Egypt, in search of ancient wonders. One of them was the Museum, also known as the Great Library of Alexandria. The word 'museum' does not mean a place to display statues and paintings. Not at all.
Over two millennia ago, the Library of Alexandria was equivalent to an institute dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. That is how it gained legendary status, and why the modern institutes devoted to preserving and sharing knowledge were named museums.
They are a direct result of the Enlightenment of the 1700s, as the director of the V&A Museum in London explains:
In Paris, London and Berlin, the age of Enlightenment – of reason and knowledge; the challenging of church and monarchy – found its form in the development of public museums.
The Enlightenment museum was a public space dedicated to the diffusion of useful knowledge.
The founding mission of the British Museum and the Louvre was to nurture an educated citizenry towards a more democratic culture of public education.
Before modern museums, the joy that comes from admiring ancient wonders and discovering the past was mainly the preserve of Kings and nobility. Now, anyone entering a museum walks into a time machine.
Museums are time machines
Please take your seat and fasten your seat belt, our plane is about to take off. We are inside a jumbo jet, the Louvre museum, but this sort of travel can be done in many museums.
We first land in Babylon, around 2,600 years ago, with this lion from the Gate of Ishtar. Getting up close, we can see it is fragments of glazed clay restored by archaeologists. So, our plane stays in the same area, today's Iraq, but only 120 years ago, when ancient Babylon appeared from the ground.
One artifact transported us a couple of millennia past, bringing us to Mesopotamia—Iraq today—and, while we are at it, a layover in Berlin, where the Gate of Ishtar is reconstituted.
Traveling back to the dawn of History
What is history? Quite simply, what is written. Prehistory refers to events that took place before the invention of writing, and history encompasses all events that occurred after.
Where did History start? In the cradle of civilization, Mesopotamia, today's Iraq. A land of lush vegetation between two rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, the Garden of Eden, as described in Genesis:
The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Assyria.
And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
When? Around 5,300 years ago. The clay tablet above is approximately 5,300 years old, a lump of mud shaped in someone's palm, with little dots and icons imprinted in the fresh clay.
Even without being a linguist, what it writes about is reasonably easy to guess: on the top left, there is a vase. The rest are numbers—dots—and different types of grain. This is about beer, and how much grain to pay temple employees with.
The effect of writing is monumental, as it enables us to discover what people were doing and thinking five millennia ago. And, at least in theory, build on their achievement, from generation to generation, to make the world a better place.
Writing and computing five millennia ago
Without writing and mathematics, there would be no computers, no internet, no Substack, and no Moments of Wonder articles...
Not long after the invention of writing in Mesopotamia, a method of counting was developed that still influences our world today: the number 60, as in 60 seconds, and 60 degrees.
Like lumping clay in one's hand and inventing writing, someone worked out that the maximum number one can count with one's fingers is sixty. You can try it at home: use your left thumb, and count the individual bones of your four fingers; you have 12.
With the right hand, repeat the operation five times, with your five fingers, and 5 x 12 = 60.
Time travel inside museums is a way to realize that we owe a great deal to people who lived millennia ago.
The Code of Hammurabi, one of History's most important documents
Legends are tales, passed on through time by memory. History is what is written.
We just marveled at a 5,300-year-old artefact about being paid in grain and beer. What about the most essential concerns other than food, like how to organize society? What is good, what is bad, the rewards for good deeds, and the punishments for bad ones?
Our plane lands in Iran in 1901. The archaeologist Jacques de Morgan obtained a permit and is digging in Susa, in the palace of Darius. With a considerable team, he sets out to cut methodically through the ground, up to 60 ft deep.
Here is, translated into English for this story, his account of a monumental discovery:
One of the most important monuments, not just of Elamite history, but of universal history, has just come to light in Susa: a code of laws engraved on a diorite prism, of which Hammurabi is the author.
He called it 'a moral and political masterpiece'.
The archaeologist was underselling it. To appreciate its significance, let's travel back in time to 3,800 years ago in the Babylonian Empire, and assume we can easily read Akkadian.
Medical knowledge:
If a physician makes a large incision with an operating knife and cure it, or if he open a tumor over the eye with an operating knife, and saves the eye, he shall receive ten shekels in money.
If the patient be a freed man, he receives five shekels.
If he be the slave of some one, his owner shall give the physician two shekels.
If a physician makes a large incision with the operating knife, and kill him, or open a tumor with the operating knife, and cut out the eye, his hands shall be cut off.
Cataract surgery was performed approximately 3,800 years ago, and the fees varied depending on the patient's social status. That is the reward part, and a harsh punishment in case the surgeon fails...
Reward and punishment in this life:
If a man puts out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out.
If he breaks another man's bone, his bone shall be broken.
If a man knocks out the teeth of his equal, his teeth shall be knocked out.
Contemplate that these words were carved into stone—made visible and eternal—1,800 years BC.
Surprise, even 4,400 years ago, people did not like paying taxes
Let's reset the time counter of our time machine to 4,400 years back, still in the same area, Mesopotamia.
It would be easy to walk past without even a glance at these two smallish (10 inches) clay cones. Granted, like trying to make sense of a book as thick as a brick, wandering around a museum with tens of thousands of artefacts can easily short-circuit one's brain.
But Rome was not built in a day, and sometimes one needs to slow down. These small objects remind us that the pyramids, temples, and colossal statues did not just pay for themselves. There was taxation, and as today, people were unhappy about having to pay taxes.
That is the story written here, when a King named Urukagina made reforms to amend unfair taxation, 4,400 years ago.
Now, since time immemorial, since the seed of life came forth,
In those days before me,
The head boatman appropriated boats,
The livestock official appropriated asses,
The livestock manager appropriated sheep,
The fisheries inspector appropriated taxes.
Even blind men were requisitioned for work! But Urukagina:
Would never subjugate the orphan or widow to the powerful.
The King claimed to protect and feed the blind, prevent the inspector from controlling taxes, and 'establish freedom' for those in prison.
So, we discovered in this brief time travel experience within museum corridors that 5,300 years ago, people were paid with beer. That 4,400 years ago, a King granted the first amnesty in history. And that 3,800 years ago, Babylonian surgeons were able to perform cataract surgery.
Not too bad for a five-minute ride.
Connecting with people living millennia ago
Walking along museum corridors is not just about admiring 'beautiful' things; it is connecting with people long gone. Every object on display is a window to a different place and time.
Every artefact also connects us with people long gone. So, this is what we will continue to do with future stories: travel through time to meet people who look and sound different from us, but are quite like us.
That's the Moment of Wonder.
Sources
Robert Koldewey. The Excavations at Babylon. Translated by Agnes S. Johns. With 255 Illustrations and Plans. St. Martin's Street, London: MacMillan and Co., Limited, 1914.
Georges Ifrah; The Universal History Of Numbers
Jacques de Morgan, La délégation en Perse du ministère de l'Instruction publique, 1897 à 1902; translated by the author.
The Code of Hammurabi, Translated by L. W. King.
Douglas Frayne, Presargonic Period: Early Periods, Volume 1 (2700-2350 BC)
Private evening guided tour of the Louvre Museum masterpieces.