I'm reading an historical overview of economic thought. The book talks about the Erlenmeyer Tablets as recording product valued/measured in 'Female Labor Days' in ancient Sumeria. I was curious what exactly this metric means or is describing?

As an unrelated question, the book mentions M. I. Finley's book 'The Ancient Economy' and, since the book was published in 1970, I'm curious if there are any better books on ancient economics/economies. I've heard the book is criticized for using literary sources, though I don't know whether or not that's accepted practice by historians.

Thanks!

I'm finding it hard to get into the mindset, ideals or goals of being a slave during the time period. What would they want to change, what would they think about it?

What were the views of the "founding fathers" on money in politics? Did they ever make any statements about how money relates to freedom of speech?

I understand that knights jousted each other with lance and a horse at tournaments. Did they ever charge each other on horseback in battle? Are there any notable examples?

I'm a layman in law but how does the declaration stack up against the constitution. I'm on the side that the declaration covers the rights not covered in the bill of rights and the constitution. Could an argument made that economic fairness be one of the unalienable rights ?

I apologize if this is a sensationalist question.

Lately I've been on a YouTube documentary kick, and just watched a mid-1990s series of three episodes of BBC's "Equinox" in which they discussed evidence of nicotine and cocaine in ancient mummies (Egyptian and otherwise) discovered through the application of modern forensics techniques.

Just about every Egyptologist or archeologist interviewed basically said that it was a load of crap, and I was curious if the whole thing was sensationalism, or if there was any new data and/or consensus on the findings.

I'm taking a History of Science class right now that focuses mainly on the Scientific Revolution era. It's really interesting to me to see all of our primary sources were originally written in Latin because some of them are from about 200 years ago. Which, to me, seems like a very short time for a language to completely die off. So how did this happen? Latin was once the most common language in the world and now it's gone?

I need to know for an essay and that's basically the question.

Bonus: what was the first war in which naval mines were used?

I remember reading somewhere that North Koreans are significantly shorter than South Koreans today because of poor nutrition, but I would think that kind of thing would only matter in the present day across national boundaries. I often hear about how people were shorter in the past due to poor nutrition, but I would think if you were rich enough then getting enough food and the right kind of food wouldn't be a problem, or at least would be less of a problem. So, would there ever have been a measurable difference between the height of richer and poorer people in the past?

I've wondered about this for a very long time, but I don't know quite how to specify the question. I wonder how many people in the Roman Republic or Roman Empire at different times in their existences were Latins, how many spoke Latin, how many considered themselves Roman, how many were citizens, how many were descended from Italian or Roman or Latin colonists vs. assimilated natives vs. marriage between the colonists/conquerors and natives, what their physical features may have been like, and so on. Who became Latinized or "Romanized" and when? The Roman polity is something quite well-defined, but I don't quite see what a Roman person was.

Can any historian recommend a good book on the history of the Philippines? It'd be nice if it covered a wider time period, in lieu of "A People's History of the United States". However, I'd appreciate any book that focused on a specific time period.