I found myself on the Wikipedia article on Aristarchus of Samos, and the section about heliocentrism deeply puzzled me:

(BTW, does anybody know how to quote Wikipedia easily?)

Aristarchus suspected the stars were other suns^[3] that are very far away, and that in consequence there was no observable parallax, that is, a movement of the stars relative to each other as the Earth moves around the Sun. The stars are much farther away than was generally assumed in ancient times; and since stellar parallax is only detectable with telescopes, his speculation although accurate was unprovable at the time.

The geocentric model was consistent with planetary parallax and was assumed to be the reason why no stellar parallax was observed. As known, Ptolemy later preferred the geocentric model which was held for true during the Middle Age.

A demonstration of Aristarchus' heliocentric model was given by Seleucus of Seleucia, a Hellenistic astronomer who lived a century after Aristarchus.^[4] The fact that Pliny the Elder^[5] and Seneca^[6] still referred to planets' retrograde motion as an apparent phenomenon, suggests that heliocentrism was an accepted theory still by their times.

It is a common idea that the heliocentric view was rejected by the contemporaries of Aristarchus. This is due to Gilles Ménage's translation of a passage from Plutarch's On the Apparent Face in the Orb of the Moon. Plutarch reported that Cleanthes (a contemporary of Aristarchus and head of the Stoics) as a worshipper of the Sun and opponent to the heliocentric model, was jokingly told by Aristarchus that he should be charged of impiety. Gilles Ménage, shortly after the trials of Galileo and Giordano Bruno, amended an accusative with a nominative, and vice versa, so that the impiety accusation fell over the heliocentric sustainer. The resulting conception of an isolated and persecuted Aristarchus is still transmitted today.^[7]

The heliocentric theory was successfully revived by Copernicus, after which Johannes Kepler described planetary motions with greater accuracy, with Kepler's laws, and Isaac Newton gave a theoretical explanation based on laws of gravitational attraction and dynamics.

[3] Louis Strous. "Who discovered that the Sun was a star?". solar-center.stanford.edu. Retrieved 2014-07-13.

[4] Plutarch, Platonicae quaestiones, VIII, i

[5] Naturalis historia, II, 70

[6] Naturales quaestiones, VII, xxv, 6–7

[7] Lucio Russo, Silvio M. Medaglia, Sulla presunta accusa di empietà ad Aristarco di Samo, in "Quaderni urbinati di cultura classica", n.s. 53 (82) (1996), pp. 113–121

I have the the following questions about its History:

1. The "A demonstration of Aristarchus' heliocentric model was given by Seleucus of Seleucia" period sounds to me bollocks. At best, from what I get Plutarch might have told us that he thought he had given one, which is completely different. I am studying physics, and from my readings about the History of Science it is quite clear to me that the Greeks had just no way to prove heliocentrism, the main problems being lack of parallax and the impossibility with their instruments of explaining the lack of dynamical effects from the supposed Earth's non-inertial reference frame (using a modern language). Is it right?

2. PARTIALLY OT - I once read somewhere that the some Greek had already anticipated the "Stars would be too big" counter-argument from Tycho to "They might be just too far for parallax", but I don't remember where and I have no source, does anybody know if it is true or am I just imagining things?

3. The article gives the impression that heliocentrism was actually some sort of a standard model of cosmology in ancient times, until those bad, bad Dark Ages came. To my inexpert knowledge, this is false and would have been simply bizarre, since geomobility solved no problem (cinematically speaking everything was equivalent) and introduced many (again, parallax and dynamics, and it helps that no mention of the rationale for Ptolemy's choice is done in the article). Am I wrong?

4. It gives such impression by arguing on primary sources by Pliny the Elder and Seneca (something that as far as I know should be prohibited as hell on W) which I don't know much about, can anybody expand on them?

5. Saying that Aristarchus theory was "revived" by Copernicus looks to me quite a stretch, but this is just nitpicking.

6. The first of the few secondary sources used by the article, and the only one in the summary, is the infamous "History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science" by Draper. This actually explains much.

My experience with Wikipedia is pretty much limited to having myself kicked out of my language's version after a series of heated discussions with an administrator on Giordano Bruno, Galileo and Tycho (with it's salient points being him adding to some articles a whole lot of arguing on primary sources to prove that Galileo knew that stars were point like, ignoring my peer review sources and substituting my sources on Giordano Bruno unscientific approach from Jole Shackelford, Ronald L. Numbers, Angelo Mercati, Frances Yales and Richard Olson with... a quote by Stephen Hawking), my knowledge on the subject is limited and I might be not the best diplomat, so I think I won't do anything about it.

However, I believe such inaccuracies are deeply worrisome. Wikipedia is, sadly, the main source of "knowledge" for a lot of people, and as far as I know such articles only contribute to the propagating of myths.

I'm asking this question because I have been fascinated by the Old Babylonian writing from 1750 BCE in this post on Reddit.

In a comment in this post, /u/labarna shares the translation of a cuneiform tablet that is essentially a complaint from one merchant to another about poor quality copper ingots.

The thought that there have surviving records of day-to-day ordinary correspondence between people that lived thousands of years ago in societies utterly alien to me is mind-blowing.

I feel that it gives a fascinating glimpse into these people's lives. It also makes me wonder what it would have been to live back then and even where I might have fit in their society long ago.

Does anyone have any other interesting examples of such writing? It could be on papyrus, it could be in cuneiform on clay tablets, it can be whatever as long as it's ancient and somewhat interpersonal. I suppose bawdy Pompeian graffiti counts, but I'm hoping for something more long-form like the complaint letter in the post above.

Now, What I mean by non-monumental (in my question) is that it's not something written on a monument celebrating a conquest or the life of a king. I'm also not interested in things like holy books.

Most of the time when I see old Egyptian or Mayan or other ancient writing on temple walls or stone engravings I think that it probably says something like "This is to celebrate the glorious victory of His Exalted King Such and Such son of Such and Such over the enemy on this day blah blah blah". That kind of stuff is not what I'm asking you kind folks to share.

Thank you!

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I have a big plaque in my living room that 6 or 7 golden pieces of metal with this script written on it. I'm pretty sure it's some south east asian language but I'm not sure.

I'm not sure if this sub is the best place to ask, but I thought that maybe it was a language that someone here might be familiar with.

Thanks!