Do you want to get out there and make a little history?

On the 12th of May, through either the University of Sheffield or directly with the Mass Observation Archive itself you can take part in creating a little time capsule of your day that will be recorded for future generations as a sort of time capsule of words.

Wait, why?

On May 12th 1937, on the day of George VI's coronation, the Mass observation called for people from all over the United kingdom to record what they did on that day from their first groaning moments in the morning to their last notes before settling to sleep. In doing so, they hoped to capture a very real snapshot of people's every day lives across the country, whether rich, poor and middling. The tradition has been carried on annually, (with some additional dates in their repertoire), and has provided a remarkable resource for historians, journalists and more who wish to get a real feel for the living breathing past. The hope is, by offering the modern day public to include their own diaries for the day, they can keep building their archive for the future.


Awesome! How Do I Get Involved?

To take part you need to mark the 12th in your diaries as the day you try to make a Samuel Pepys of yourself. Record as much as you can about what you do, who you meet, what you talk about, what you eat, drink, buy, sell, what you;re working on, what you visit, what you read, see and hear around you, how you feel and what you're thinking. If it's a typical day say so, and if it's unusual then say so too. 

To give a little context make sure to note briefly your age, where you live, your relationship status, your present job and any other important info.

Type it all up on a word document AND INCLUDE THE STATEMENT BELOW, or else they won't be able to use your entry in their archive.

“I donate my 12th May diary to the Mass Observation Archive. I consent to it being made publicly available as part of the Archive and assign my copyright in the diary to the Mass Observation Archive Trustees so that it can be reproduced in full or in part on websites, in publications and in broadcasts as approved by the Mass Observation Trustees. I agree to the Mass Observation Archive assuming the role of Data Controller and the Archive will be responsible for the collection and processing of personal data and ensuring that such data complies with the DPA.”

Finally, email it to moa@sussex.ac.uk

Et voila! you have just achieved a little slice of immortality.


Where Can I Learn More?

Sussex university manages the Mass Observation project, so their website or the Mass Observation twitter account is the best place to have a poke around.
Personally I found the 'occasional papers' section of their website fascinating: here you can find various articles and papers that draw interesting results from having worked with the archives themselves. For example, this student paper on 'Birth and Power'.

It's hard to imagine getting by in life without writing nowadays...

While of course there is still illiteracy in the world, nevertheless a huge number of societies wouldn't be able to function without writing, whether it's the imaginative novels that sustain our spirits or the complex data entry that keeps our bureaucracies ticking.

It all started with accountancy

The Kushim Tablet

The oldest recognised piece of writing dates to around c3,400-3,000 BC by the Sumerians in the city of Uruk. Recorded on a stone tablet it made use of a measurement system for numbers as well as well known symbols for words - a form of 'cuniform' writing.  Before cuniform writing there was a manner of recording types of objects and numbers by using token pebbles; for example one with a cross carved on it meant a sheep. But if you has 38 sheep you needed 38 tokens and it was hardly efficient. this new cuniform writing enabled far more detail with far less effort.

Unfortunately there is no great piece of history or story recorded on the stone tablet: it served a wholly practical purpose. Scholars, after much study, managed to translate the tablet as reading:

"29,086 measures barley 37 months Kushim"

What is the most interesting about the Kushim tablet - aside from it serving a a snapshot of an ancient business transaction - is the word 'Kushim'. It seems not to fit with any other symbol, but is instead made up of two separate symbols that make two separate sounds: 'ku'  and 'shim'. We can assume, then, that the Sumerian people made use of not just symbols that represent their literal origin, but something more phonetic. By using symbols that corresponded to the words as spoken, you could mould them together to make new words. 'Kushim' could the the official title of the transaction or official occupation of the person handing out the transaction. Or, most interestingly, it could be a name. If so, 'Kushim' is the first name in recorded history. 

Giglamesh

It wasn't long before the Sumerians began to get creative and the Epic of Giglamesh was born.

The Epic of Giglamesh is largely credited as the first novel ever written, with its earliest copy dating to around 2,100 BC. The most complete version we have was written on twelve stone tablets (one of which currently resides in the British Museum) and tells the story of the King Giglamesh who ruled over Uruk in around 2,700 BC. 
Gilgamesh was worshipped after his death due to his wisdom ans judiciousness and celebrated for his abilities as a warrior and a builder. He even is thought to make a feature in the bible as 'Erech'. To this day the story of Giglamesh's quest for immortality is still being bought and read by scholars and the general public alike.



But not everyone used writing for quite such a 'noble' purpose

Once writing took hold it was here to stay and with great power - and increasingly widening literacy - comes great responsibility. We all know what trouble writing has brought through history as well as what goodness. Perhaps, for the armchair historian, the best pieces of writing are those that were a little rebellious without being grim; those that show us that, no matter when they lived, people have always been people and nothing much ever really changes.

You can find one cute example through Erik Kwakkel's Tumblr page. Here he shows off a discovery from the 1950s from near the city of Novgorod in Russia. Archaeologists dug up hundreds of pieces of birch bark with all sorts of texts written on them. One set were from a medieval classroom where, in the 13th century, young boys were learning to write. Like many students they inevitably got bored and when they did they started to doodle...

Nothing much changes when it comes to children's drawings

Another charming (if crude) example of people using writing for more rebellious purposes are in the infamous pieces of Roman graffiti, the best of which can be found in Pompeii and Herculaneum. If you pardon a little profanity, here are a few gems that would not look out of place scrawled in a nightclub's toilets.

Found on the house of Peascius Hermes:
"Watch it, you that shits in this place! May you have Jove's anger if you ignore this."

"Apollinaris, medicus Titi Imperatoris hic cacavit bene"
"Apollinaris, doctor to the emperor Titus, had a good crap here."

"Oppi, emboliari, fur, furuncle"
"Oppius, you're a clown, a thief and a cheap crook."

Found on the Barracks of the Julian-Claudian gladiators:
"Celadus of Thracian makes the girls moan!"

"Philiros spado"
"Phileros is a eunuch."

Found in the Basilica:
"Chie, I hope your hemorrhoids rub together so much that they hurt worse than when they ever have before!"

A note carved on the door of the Inn of the Muledrivers:
"We have pissed in our beds. Host, I admit that we shouldn't have done this. If you ask why? There was no potty."

In a Herculaneum bar next to a drawing of a phallus (still bizarely popular today!)

"Handle with care."

As ever, turn to 'The Life of Brian' for your Roman history!

For more Roman goodness try these related posts:

How did the Roman Empire begin?
No accounting for taste: the painted statues of ancient Greece and Rome
Review: I Claudius by Robert Graves
Historical hairstyles to try at home

For more ancient history try these related posts:
Was the agricultural revolution the worst mistake in human history?
Historical honey's 'The fascinating history of cosmetic surgery'
Legends of the sun
The golden eyed lady of Shahr-e Suketh
5 Advanced ancient technologies that shouldn't be possible.



Sources
- Sapiens, a Brief History of Humankind - Yuval Noah Harari
-The British Museum: Historic Writing
-The Development of Writing Erik Kwakkel
- The History of Writing, G Carboni
- Medieval Doodles on Birch bark - Erik Kawakkel via tumblr
-The birth of writing: the Kushim tablet
-The first book ever written
-The epic of Giglamesh; Sparknotes
-11 colourful phrases of ancient Roman graffiti
-The bawdy graffiti of Pompeii and Herculaneum

The General Cemetery is a favourite spot of mine in Sheffield, so I was thrilled when I was asked to review their new updated book on the history of the place.

There's always something oddly romantic about cemeteries for people who enjoy history, I think. In a way cemeteries are a living embodiment of what happens to the past: you can pick out famous names in grand monuments that stand out against the unknowns who have been quietly forgotten to all but a few people - much like we track our own history through the stories of a few charismatic and often very rich and powerful individuals while the more common people fade into the background. In the cemeteries the writing on the graves weather over time, just like in history the details are always softened as stories are passed down through the ages or weathered by the stronger winds of opinions. As you walk around these kinds of old cemeteries you can physically see nature reclaiming the human, just as history will one day be overgrown and fade away as humans do. It's all a beautiful mix and if you're a sap like me you can't help feeling a little poetic and drawn to them.

You can find my review over at Opus Independents here.

Also, if you're interested in more history of the place, why not check out my earlier article on Now Then magazine?

We've never been a family that had that much ritual in our lives. 

We never went to church on a Sunday, nor were we the types to swarm around the crucible when snooker came to show off there under the monolith of the outdoor television screen. But we always, without fail, attended the Remembrance Sunday display at the war memorial in the centre of town.

Remembrance Sunday in Sheffield 2014

When we were very little it was always a strange, exciting event to see our dad don a blazer for once instead of his usual oil speckled jumpers. As we headed downstairs into our grandparents’ part of the house Nannan and Granddad’s bedroom would reek of Chanel No 5 and hairspray harsh enough to infect our tongues. The poppies would be lined up on the hall table in a neat row and, carefully, Granddad and Mum would pin them to our posh coats.

We didn't really have ties to the great wars apart from the dim notion that Granddad’s father had died long after from oil-soaked lungs in the wake of a sinking submarine. But such images were distant and legendary, tinged with the doubt that joined any stories of domestic drama or marvel: like the rumour of elephants in Sheffield's old brick yards; like the legend that Granddad’s hair had not always been white. Instead, as children, it was the event of it all that sought to mark the date.

Every eleventh of the eleventh (or thereabouts) we would join the swollen crowd around the memorial in the freezing cold. We witnessed the lines of soldiers and the brass band march with grim discipline through fenced off roads, joined by the surreal jolly tinkling of a xylophone played by a line of sailors. But the show grew smaller every year.

Even the 'cannon' has been removed. As kids, It was the loudest sound that we had ever heard.

But the veterans with their stiff white gloves and giant flags remain.

In our family, we too - like the performers in this communion with the dead - grow fewer in number. And with each subtracted poppy from the table the expressions on the bronze martyrs' faces of the memorial become more imperceptible. Just as we no longer taste perfume and hairspray as we walk down to put on our coats, so too does the history dim away from our senses. But we still wait in the cold and press against the railings. We mime to half remembered hymns and wait through the echoing unintelligible audio that bounces off the buildings. We fall silent and we remember how that canon fired so loud to announce so many lives lost. How the pigeons scattered into the sky. 

And we feel like we have done something right.

This year - in the wake of the 100th anniversary  - the event is growing larger again. The horses are back, the marching and music have swelled, and the city hall square is packed to the brim with bustling people and children on shoulders. Two minutes' silence rings out and a man in front of us, built like an oak tree, removes his hat. Far away in the capital city, the Tower of London bleeds with 886,246 ceramic poppies.

The sun shines and Sheffield says thank you.