WEBVTT - The Facsimile, Part 1 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.360 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:14.600 Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:18.200 My name is Robert Land, and I'm Joe McCormick. And 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:20.800 today is going to be one of our invention episodes, 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:22.680 the first of a series. In fact, we're going to 0:00:22.720 --> 0:00:27.000 be doing a couple of episodes on the history and 0:00:27.080 --> 0:00:31.080 invention of document duplication. And I think this is a 0:00:31.160 --> 0:00:33.760 fantastic subject for our show because one of our favorite 0:00:33.760 --> 0:00:36.600 things to do is, uh, look at something that is 0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:40.559 so mundane that you don't even notice it's there anymore, 0:00:40.960 --> 0:00:44.200 and rediscover what's strange about it. And I think documents 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:47.279 are a wonderful example of that, because documents are kind 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:51.560 of it's the fish asking what is water? Situation? We're 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:55.400 Documents are such a fundamental part of our our culture 0:00:55.560 --> 0:00:58.600 and our our economic and legal lives that we we 0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:01.480 don't even stop to thing in what life would be 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:04.640 like without them. Yeah, just for many of us in 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:07.760 a given day, Just think how many documents we create 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:13.080 or we abandon or delete. Uh, you know, we create 0:01:13.160 --> 0:01:15.440 them for matters that are serious, but also matters that 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:19.480 are trivial, work related, personal. Um. You know, we'll just 0:01:19.520 --> 0:01:21.280 we'll just create a new document at the drop of 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:24.040 a hat. But but just even considering like the basic 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:27.520 idea of document duplication, which we're going to be covering. Uh, 0:01:27.600 --> 0:01:30.600 just you think about like sending an email, I send 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:34.080 you an email of a document, and uh, a copy 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:37.040 of that document is saved for my purposes, and then 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:40.080 if you respond to me, uh, that probably also has 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:43.800 another copy of the original document at the bottom. Um. 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:46.880 So all of this it just occurs without us putting 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:48.880 any effort into it at all. You know, It's funny 0:01:48.880 --> 0:01:51.200 how much that in particular connects to something we'll talk 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:54.760 about later in this episode, which is that early mechanical 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:59.560 processes for document duplication, we're often very focused on replicating 0:01:59.600 --> 0:02:04.080 outing correspondence. This is a thing that was incredibly important 0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:07.600 for for business and legal and personal purposes all throughout 0:02:07.600 --> 0:02:09.440 the years. You wanted to have a copy of a 0:02:09.560 --> 0:02:11.720 letter that you were going to send to somebody else 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:14.360 so you could remember what you said. Uh, And that 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:17.239 just happens automatically now because of course we're we're sending 0:02:17.240 --> 0:02:21.920 most of our messages digitally. Yeah. Absolutely, So first of all, 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:26.160 let's just back up and just think about the document itself. Um, 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:28.320 and we've touched on some of this before, just talking 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:31.280 about the history of of writing and language. But a 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:35.200 document is essentially human thoughts committed to a medium via 0:02:35.280 --> 0:02:38.680 writing and or drawings, And in this way such thoughts 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:43.840 can be recorded, clarified, preserved, and passed onto others across 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:47.480 space and time, in many ways, transcending what is possible 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:51.520 via merely spoken language. Right, and there's there's actually a 0:02:51.560 --> 0:02:55.840 great little description that I I'd like to borrow from 0:02:55.919 --> 0:02:58.760 Arthur C. Clark's two tho one of Space Odyssey. In it, 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:02.320 uh Clark is describing the music of Mozart playing on 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:06.000 the spaceship Discovery and refers to them as quote, the 0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:08.600 frozen thoughts of a brain that had been dust for 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:11.800 twice a hundred years. One of the interesting things about 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:15.040 Mozart is Mozart goes back to a time where we 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:19.080 don't even have original recordings, so we we don't have 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:22.280 audio recordings of anything that Mozart would have been present 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:25.800 for the playing of in his own lifetime. All that 0:03:25.840 --> 0:03:29.639 we can get is Mozart's music through documents written as 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:32.760 sheet music and translated to people who would reproduce it 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:36.480 years later. Yeah, So the the amazing thing about documents 0:03:36.480 --> 0:03:39.760 in general is that, you know, while translation is often required, 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:43.920 we can still essentially take documents from centuries or millenniago 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:48.480 and kind of you know, resuscitate them, rehydrate them so 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:53.200 that these desiccated thoughts can come to life again and 0:03:53.240 --> 0:03:57.200 resonate once more inside of living human brains. The document 0:03:57.280 --> 0:04:00.520 is a code that allows you to briefly hatch the 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:05.120 virus of someone else's thoughts from a different time and place. Yeah. Yeah, 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:07.680 So documents have been with us for a very long time, 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:12.120 dating back to the late fourth millennium BC and Mesopotamia 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:15.280 at least. While some scholars believe writing may have spread 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:17.599 from culture to culture, the majority see it as a 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:21.640 situation of independent invention in the various major civilizations of 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:26.000 the ancient world, as it becomes increasingly important to record 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:30.040 trade data, laws, histories, and more so. In other words, 0:04:30.240 --> 0:04:35.360 the advancement of these civilizations requires the use of documents now, 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:39.919 as humans possessed neither perfect document recall or unlimited memorization 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:42.920 storage space. One of the things about official documents like 0:04:42.960 --> 0:04:47.960 this is that their use often necessitated duplication. Now, to 0:04:48.080 --> 0:04:52.440 illustrate this, I thought we might go back a good 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:57.080 years for an example from the Neo Babylonian period. Um. 0:04:57.120 --> 0:04:59.920 The source I was looking at here was Neo bab 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:03.800 Bolognian record Keeping Practices by Heather D. Baker, published in 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:08.840 two thousand threes Ancient Archives and Archival Traditions. In this 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:12.680 the author discusses the importance of duplication in these ancient 0:05:12.720 --> 0:05:15.840 documents systems, um and and and to be clear once more, 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:19.640 the Neo Babylonian period here we're talking about b C 0:05:20.040 --> 0:05:22.960 through b C, so we're not going back super far 0:05:23.440 --> 0:05:25.479 in the written record, but we're still going back quite 0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:28.080 a ways. What did they do? How did they make 0:05:28.120 --> 0:05:31.040 copies of their important documents? They did not have photocopy 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:34.760 of machines yet, right, So she points out that first, 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:37.000 you know, there's there's linguistic evidence for the use of 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:43.400 copies various words that concern um the duplication of documents. 0:05:43.560 --> 0:05:46.760 And then we of course have examples of surviving copies 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:49.200 from ancient times as well. Though she contends that the 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:53.440 use of copies is probably underrepresented in the archaeological record, 0:05:53.960 --> 0:05:57.039 and specifically with this example, with these examples from this 0:05:57.080 --> 0:05:59.680 time period, we're talking about private contracts a lot of 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:04.039 the time inscribed on pillow shaped tablets, pieces of clay, 0:06:04.080 --> 0:06:07.960 complete with info, signatures and dates. Okay, so you'd have 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:10.599 like a clay tablet and you'd make inscriptions in it, 0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:14.800 indentations or markings in it. That would be a record 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:18.440 of some kind of transaction usually right, and she writes 0:06:18.520 --> 0:06:21.960 quote whatever form they took, private archival documents were written 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:25.800 and kept primarily as proof that an obligation existed or 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:29.279 have been discharged, or as evidence of title to property. 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:32.400 And of course this is uh, this is not that 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:35.880 far removed from our current use of documents. Um. She 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:40.120 points out some extremely relatable reasons for duplication of such documents, 0:06:40.120 --> 0:06:42.880 though um and and again these are reasons for dul 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:46.200 duplication that are largely still with us today. She brings 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:49.800 up the division of inheritance between three parties, in which 0:06:49.839 --> 0:06:53.320 each party would require a valid document to demonstrate their 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:57.680 entitlement to an estate portion. She um. Also, she mentions 0:06:57.720 --> 0:07:00.440 the idea of a person, say, inheriting three different pieces 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:03.800 of property and then selling one of them off. This 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:06.680 individual would need a copy of the original agreement to 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:09.040 pass on to the buyer, but would need to keep 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:13.720 the original document pertaining to the items they didn't sell off. Okay, 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:17.480 so the tablet, the physical document, uh, provides a sort 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:21.560 of authorization of how things are, how things should be. 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:25.239 They give you legitimate claim to something beyond just saying 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:27.960 this is mine, right right, you know, And and it 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:30.120 creates a paper trailer, I guess in this case, a 0:07:30.240 --> 0:07:34.960 tablet trail. Um. But another interesting thing that that she 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:36.800 brings up that I didn't even think about, because on 0:07:36.800 --> 0:07:39.520 one hand, okay, let's say talking about an agreement between 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:44.040 two parties. Obviously both parties need to have a copy 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:46.400 of the agreement so they can look at it and like, oh, 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:48.920 what did we say about that property line or whatever? Well, 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:52.280 let's look at the document. But another factor here is 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:55.240 that and this is something explicitly stated in the records. 0:07:55.440 --> 0:07:58.280 According to Baker, two copies of an agreement are made 0:07:58.480 --> 0:08:02.480 because then neither party can alter the writing of the agreement, 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:05.320 or rather you can alter it, or the other person 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:08.320 can alter it. But each side has a copy of 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:10.440 the original. So you know, you're not gonna be able 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:13.600 to change things in your favor on both documents because 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:17.080 you do not have possession of both copies. Two copies 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:20.360 I guess keep both parties honest. I see, so if 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:22.920 only one party had a contract, they could go get 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:25.560 ascribed to make a new one that said something different 0:08:25.600 --> 0:08:27.680 and then say this was always the way it was, 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:29.800 and all all you could do is say no, it wasn't. 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:32.839 But you wouldn't have anything physical to point to write, 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:36.640 she writes. Quote. As far as record keeping practices are concerned, 0:08:36.640 --> 0:08:39.640 it is impossible to determine whether a duplicate was prepared 0:08:40.120 --> 0:08:43.760 at the time of the original transaction or later, except 0:08:43.840 --> 0:08:47.200 when the particular phrase and she shares this phrase, uh 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:51.920 is present, indicating a copy made from an older, damaged original. 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:54.240 Now that this is I thought this was interesting because 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:56.440 if you have points out that, okay, obviously some of 0:08:56.480 --> 0:09:00.200 the time you might be creating that duplicate copy the 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:03.720 time that the original is authored. Like we're entering into 0:09:03.720 --> 0:09:06.520 this agreement, we need two copies, we need three copies, 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:08.319 what have you. But then there are gonna be other 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:11.760 cases where oh, well, we need to make a copy 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:16.080 of this document for some purpose, or this document is 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:19.560 broken or is decaying, or is something damaged about it, 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:22.000 and we need to make sure that the information of 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:26.840 on on that tablet survives, uh, the decay of the medium. 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:30.960 And so sometimes we can't tell which type of copy 0:09:31.120 --> 0:09:33.120 something would be when looking at it. But it's not 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:36.480 always necessarily clear whether something is the original or a 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:39.960 copy made concurrent with the original, or a copy made later, right, 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:42.959 except in some circumstances where there's some sort of linguistic 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:46.560 clue and uh, and yeah, this this idea too, of 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:50.440 the need for document duplication, because the media upon which 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:55.120 documents are inscribed, they just inherently deteriorate. And and that 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:58.760 is the case throughout most of human history, whether you're 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:02.000 dealing with clay, tablet or um you know, some sort 0:10:02.040 --> 0:10:07.440 of oracle bones or certainly parchment um. You know, these 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:10.320 are not things that can last forever. But in many 0:10:10.360 --> 0:10:14.000 cases we want the information to last beyond the lifestyle 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:17.480 time of that particular physical medium. She also points out 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:21.120 the documents were also copied in the course of scribal training, 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:23.840 and the resulting duplications may have found their way into 0:10:23.840 --> 0:10:27.400 private archives. Oh that's interesting. It makes me wonder, if 0:10:28.000 --> 0:10:31.080 you know, because of course many texts that existed in 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:33.640 the ancient world no longer survived that we don't know 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:36.160 of any copies that exist, maybe they're buried out in 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:38.800 the desert somewhere, but we don't have any that are 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:41.360 available to us. And I wonder if some of the 0:10:41.400 --> 0:10:44.480 texts that came through from the ancient world and plentiful 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:48.040 supply actually came through, maybe not because they were important 0:10:48.080 --> 0:10:51.160 in themselves, but because they were, like example, texts that 0:10:51.240 --> 0:10:55.480 people practiced copying text on. Now, in that same book 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:59.200 that Ancient Archives and Archival Traditions from two thousand three, 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:03.160 there's another author who touches briefly on duplication, and this 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:09.400 is closs our Vinhof discussing documents kept by old Assyrian traders. 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:12.000 And this is interesting because we we've talked I think 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:13.880 we've talked about this on the show before in the past, 0:11:14.120 --> 0:11:17.319 where you have your dealing with with with with clay 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:21.079 tablets here, but you also have you have envelopes around 0:11:21.160 --> 0:11:25.880 some of those tablets, stamped clay envelopes. Uh. So obviously 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:28.839 there's only one way to get You're not gonna be 0:11:28.880 --> 0:11:32.360 able to get the original out of that, uh that 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:36.480 that envelope. That envelope is sealed for a reason. You know, 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:39.680 It's it's about sort of like binding the information inside it. 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:42.840 H So In cases like this, you would need a 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:47.400 duplicate of a copy that is sealed inside the envelope. Ah, Okay, 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:49.280 that makes sense. I mean it would be much the 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:51.319 same I guess as if you had a you know, 0:11:51.320 --> 0:11:54.760 it's like if your your grandmother gave you a gift 0:11:54.800 --> 0:11:57.920 wrapped for Christmas, and it was important to you to 0:11:57.920 --> 0:12:01.959 to to keep that gift wrapped within at within that package, 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:03.680 but you also wanted to know what she gave you 0:12:03.720 --> 0:12:07.040 for Christmas, so you also had a copy of the 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:10.679 toy that wasn't contained within that package, and you just 0:12:10.760 --> 0:12:15.320 kept the actual gift, uh wrapped the entire time. Doubles 0:12:15.400 --> 0:12:18.880 is better or triples is best? Actually yes, So these 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:20.600 are just some brief examples, but I think they helped 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:24.040 illustrate the fact that document duplication has been with us 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:26.880 a very long time, and it was just necessary to 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:30.360 ensure that documents documents could do what they needed to 0:12:30.400 --> 0:12:34.120 do within a given culture. Though. I think it's interesting, 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:37.480 so while document copying has been with us since the 0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:40.080 ancient world, for all these reasons we've been talking about, 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:44.079 I think it's also important to appreciate ways in which 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:48.560 our thinking about documents has changed due in part probably 0:12:48.600 --> 0:12:52.000 two changes in technology that that make it easier to 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:55.880 copy documents, and two changes in the say literacy rates 0:12:55.920 --> 0:12:58.959 within a culture, which also changed the way people think 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:02.200 about documents. But I was reading a section from a 0:13:02.200 --> 0:13:04.679 book that I found really interesting. So it was a 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:07.960 book called um Oral Tradition and the Written Record in 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:12.679 Classical Athens by a scholar of classics at Oxford University 0:13:12.720 --> 0:13:16.760 named Rosalind Thomas. This was published Cambridge University Press in 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:20.480 nineteen eighty nine, and so this is a section talking 0:13:20.520 --> 0:13:24.800 about how documents and copies of documents were used in 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:28.240 classical Athens. This would have been in in Greece around 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:31.760 the fourth to fifth centuries b C. And so this 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:34.959 would have been a time when documents were available. There 0:13:35.000 --> 0:13:37.720 was some literacy in the culture, and documents were used 0:13:37.760 --> 0:13:40.240 and referred to, saying court cases and things like that, 0:13:40.320 --> 0:13:44.480 and for business. But it wasn't a document culture to 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:47.160 the same extent that we might consider ourselves part of 0:13:47.160 --> 0:13:50.920 a document culture. It was a sort of halfway document culture. 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:54.040 It was a proto document culture. And so the ways 0:13:54.080 --> 0:13:56.840 they thought about documents and copies were very different than 0:13:56.880 --> 0:13:58.640 the way we think about them. And so I wanted 0:13:58.640 --> 0:14:00.599 to mention a few things she he talks about that 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:03.760 struck me as interesting. And so, during the fourth and 0:14:03.960 --> 0:14:07.520 fifth centuries BC, the use of written documents was increasing 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:10.520 in various spheres of life. In Athens. You could argue 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:13.000 this was a time of transition from a primarily oral 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:17.319 culture to an increasingly document conscious culture. Uh. And then 0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:21.000 there were more books circulating during the late fifth century Athens, 0:14:21.080 --> 0:14:23.680 and this led to critiques by figures like Plato and 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:27.480 other philosophers who believed that the spoken word had virtues 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:31.360 that were lost in a literary culture. Actually, like Plato stress, 0:14:31.400 --> 0:14:34.240 for example, that a document used in court must be 0:14:34.360 --> 0:14:37.600 verified by the oral testimony of eye witnesses to its drafting, 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:42.360 among other critiques not as much related to the legal system, 0:14:42.400 --> 0:14:45.840 having to do with memory and so forth. But from 0:14:45.880 --> 0:14:47.920 here Thomas goes on to say that we can actually 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:51.080 tell from many clues that the ancient Greeks did not 0:14:51.320 --> 0:14:54.440 think about written documents and copying exactly the same way 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:58.160 we do. And she points out that it's it's obvious 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:02.560 that the significance of a doc hument often lay within 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:06.880 its non written aspects, and that documents were sometimes treated 0:15:06.920 --> 0:15:10.160 not only original documents, but copies of those documents were 0:15:10.160 --> 0:15:14.520 treated as quote, iconic or material symbols more so than 0:15:14.560 --> 0:15:17.440 as a reference tool. And a great example here is 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:23.080 comparing stone inscriptions versus originals written on what we might 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:26.000 think of as paper or papyrus. Like the question is 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:30.320 which is more authoritative. So you might have an original 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:34.000 record of a statement that could be a treaty between 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:37.160 two nations, or it could be a law issued, or 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:40.120 it could be decree by a ruler, and you would 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:43.600 have an original record of that statement that we could 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:46.160 think of as a paper record, and then you would 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:50.120 have copies of that statement made on stone that would 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:52.520 be considered more the public version. Like you could have 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:56.600 a steely that would have a copy of the original 0:15:56.640 --> 0:16:00.400 decree or treaty or something. And so we would assume, 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:03.880 based on our type of document consciousness, that the original 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:08.120 paper document is the more authoritative one and the stone 0:16:08.160 --> 0:16:11.000 inscription that's a copy of that document is the less 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:15.000 authoritative one. But people in classical Athens did not necessarily 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:18.800 agree with that. Of course, the process of copying from 0:16:18.800 --> 0:16:22.120 an original document to a stone inscription is a a 0:16:22.200 --> 0:16:26.720 lossy process. This is not fidelity or lossless copying that 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:30.320 we count on today. This is copying done by hand 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:35.040 and often with just blatant disregard for the actual wording 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:37.480 of the original. There'll be all kinds of changes and 0:16:37.800 --> 0:16:40.640 mistakes and stuff introduced in fact at this time a 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:43.560 lot of times, like spelling and punctuation and stuff might 0:16:43.560 --> 0:16:47.120 not even be standardized. But as evidence of this different 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:51.600 kind of consciousness, Thomas cites orators from the period who 0:16:51.720 --> 0:16:56.120 quote documents and they will refer to the stone inscription 0:16:56.240 --> 0:16:59.760 copies of those documents, maybe as as the document might 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:03.640 have year on a publicly visible steely rather than the 0:17:03.760 --> 0:17:09.320 archived originals of those documents. And also some political documents 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:13.760 would like demand obedience specifically to the steely. It might 0:17:13.800 --> 0:17:17.080 say something like, it is this steely which will bind 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:20.720 you to your oaths. So this you know, this stone inscription, 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:23.800 even though it's a copy that might introduce changes from 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:28.360 the original. Uh And Thomas also argues that our concepts 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:32.800 of original and copy don't necessarily apply to thinking in 0:17:32.840 --> 0:17:37.240 classical Athens, like the Greek word for copy anti graphon 0:17:37.840 --> 0:17:41.600 appears to be used to describe both the archived original 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:45.399 document and the publicly visible steely. So you might in 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:48.080 this context just as well say that the earlier paper 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:50.719 version is a copy of the Steely even though it 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:53.439 was made before, and so the idea of a copy 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:58.480 has no derogatory implications about the fidelity or authority of 0:17:58.520 --> 0:18:01.960 the document. And so from all this, Thomas argues that 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:05.600 that an emphasis on verbatim accurate copying the kind of 0:18:05.600 --> 0:18:07.760 copying that we would depend on, Like if you know, 0:18:07.800 --> 0:18:10.680 if you're making copies of something in an office setting 0:18:11.080 --> 0:18:13.639 and the copies of that document make all kinds of 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:17.639 changes to the document, we would consider that a problem. 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:21.359 Like that's not even necessarily a poor copy. That is 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:25.320 uh that I mean, it's it's a fraudulent copy. Yeah. Yeah. 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:28.720 But Thomas argues that an assumption that a later copy 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:32.240 is less authoritative that is something that tends to come 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:35.280 with a more highly literate culture, and fourth or fifth 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:39.080 century Athens had not really reached this point. Another thing, 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:40.920 I wonder this is not a point that Thomas makes, 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:42.880 but I was just thinking, so a lot of these 0:18:42.920 --> 0:18:46.840 documents in ancient Greece would have been attempts to record 0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:50.840 spoken decrees or agreements. So to take an agreement that 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:54.199 had been made between two leaders in spoken form, or 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:57.480 to record the spoken decree of a ruler or something 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:01.280 and write that down, which I doubt would be a 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:04.800 process of perfect fidelity even when first recorded. You know, 0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:09.040 so even the first writing down of this probably introduces 0:19:09.119 --> 0:19:13.040 some changes, and so does an emphasis on perfect copying 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:17.879 also arise more when documents are uh, when their first 0:19:17.920 --> 0:19:20.800 instantiation is in written form, you know, when they leave 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:23.679 the pin of the original author rather than the mouth. 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:26.360 If that makes any sense, Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, 0:19:26.680 --> 0:19:29.600 so basically we could, we could. The question might be 0:19:29.920 --> 0:19:35.600 if you have UM written documents arising in response or 0:19:35.680 --> 0:19:40.040 as a way to support oral agreements, Uh, then yeah, 0:19:40.080 --> 0:19:43.720 you can. There may be this looseness in UM in 0:19:44.080 --> 0:19:47.159 the authority of of of copies. But then when you 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:51.160 are depending primarily on the documents, then we see uh, 0:19:51.200 --> 0:19:53.480 you know, the the the idea of the original document 0:19:53.560 --> 0:19:57.679 being key and the fidelity of the document being of 0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:00.639 of of prime importance. But there's another thing that Thomas 0:20:00.720 --> 0:20:03.360 mentions that struck me as really interesting about this different 0:20:03.400 --> 0:20:08.560 document consciousness. Uh. She points out that there was an 0:20:08.560 --> 0:20:11.760 assumption common to many people in classical Athens that, in 0:20:11.880 --> 0:20:14.640 order to show that a document was no longer enforced. 0:20:14.800 --> 0:20:19.840 The document was supposed to be destroyed or obliterated. And 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:22.960 I think, wow, that is so interesting. That's in most 0:20:23.000 --> 0:20:27.160 context today that would not strike us as something to do, like, oh, okay, 0:20:27.400 --> 0:20:30.400 there's a new system for logging into our timekeeping website 0:20:30.400 --> 0:20:34.600 at work. Better destroy the old instruction document. You know, 0:20:34.800 --> 0:20:37.280 you just don't use it anymore, right, But there was 0:20:37.320 --> 0:20:40.760 something about document consciousness at this time and place that 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:45.119 suggested almost a kind of magical authority to say that 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:48.000 the stone on which an inscription is made, or the 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:50.720 sheet on which in an archive original of a of 0:20:50.760 --> 0:20:54.439 a document is is kept that like, in order to 0:20:54.880 --> 0:20:58.560 indicate that whatever is written on this document no longer 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:02.360 holds true, you need to like smash or or in 0:21:02.440 --> 0:21:06.800 some way annihilate this document itself, rather than just say 0:21:07.160 --> 0:21:09.679 keeping it for your records but knowing that it is 0:21:09.720 --> 0:21:13.280 no longer in force. Yeah, this is interesting to think about. Um. 0:21:13.720 --> 0:21:17.639 I mean, I guess it's not without its parallels in 0:21:17.640 --> 0:21:20.160 in the modern world. I mean, obviously you can think 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:22.879 of top secret documents that are burned after reading and 0:21:22.920 --> 0:21:27.119 so forth, sensitive documents that should be shredded or disposed of. 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:29.800 I'm also that's more of a security question, then a 0:21:29.920 --> 0:21:34.119 question of like whether the content still hold true or not. Right. Well, 0:21:34.119 --> 0:21:36.359 one example that came to mind too was that of 0:21:36.720 --> 0:21:40.880 an invalid passport. Um the passports generally not destroyed, but 0:21:41.240 --> 0:21:43.639 at least with with US passports. I don't know if 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:45.240 there's a different practice in other parts of the world, 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:47.600 but you get that big hole punch through it, yeah, 0:21:49.400 --> 0:21:51.680 which is isn't quite destruction, but you know, it's sort 0:21:51.680 --> 0:21:54.560 of to say, like we have phil physically altered the documents, 0:21:54.600 --> 0:21:57.280 these documents are no longer valid. Well, that gives a 0:21:57.359 --> 0:21:59.120 hint to something that actually I think we'll come back 0:21:59.119 --> 0:22:01.240 to more in the sec End episode of the series. 0:22:01.280 --> 0:22:04.320 But the idea of documents security that say, when you 0:22:04.320 --> 0:22:06.000 live in a world like us, you know, this is 0:22:06.040 --> 0:22:09.160 a world in which copies of documents are scarce. They're 0:22:09.240 --> 0:22:12.320 laborious to produce because they have to be produced by hand, 0:22:12.840 --> 0:22:16.600 and so uh so there's gonna be naturally very few 0:22:16.640 --> 0:22:20.879 copies of most documents except maybe very widely circulated books, 0:22:20.920 --> 0:22:24.040 and even those they're expensive and they're costly to produce, 0:22:24.040 --> 0:22:26.199 their laborious they made, they're made by hand and all that. 0:22:26.440 --> 0:22:29.320 So the ancient world was a was a situation of 0:22:29.440 --> 0:22:34.360 global documents scarcity in a world of the exact opposite 0:22:34.359 --> 0:22:40.200 to just proliferation of uh infinite lossless copying of documents 0:22:40.240 --> 0:22:43.120 their digital means in which we live today, the main 0:22:43.240 --> 0:22:45.640 problems facing us are totally different ones. It's like, how 0:22:45.640 --> 0:22:50.200 do you keep either yeah, useless or unimportant documents from 0:22:50.240 --> 0:22:54.320 cluttering up your world, or keep sensitive documents from being 0:22:54.320 --> 0:22:57.639 distributed in ways that they shouldn't be now, um, Heather D. 0:22:57.800 --> 0:23:02.240 Baker in that Neo Babylonian paper reference earlier, Uh, they 0:23:02.240 --> 0:23:06.280 did mention, uh, some examples of document destruction. In this case, 0:23:06.320 --> 0:23:09.159 we'd be talking about the physical breaking of tablets. And 0:23:09.200 --> 0:23:12.760 if I'm understanding or correctly, um and it, it does 0:23:12.800 --> 0:23:15.800