Imagine, 2,000 years from now, your senior yearbook ends up in the hands of a bunch of fascinated archeologists and anthropologists. All those photos of you and your bros clowning around by the vending machines, making nonsense at pep rallies, the whole nine yards. Wouldn't that be weird?
Well now you know how a bunch of ancient Greek athletes feel:
Researchers in the United Kingdom have found that an ancient Greek inscription on a 2,000-year-old marble tablet is actually something resembling a yearbook for a graduating class, according to a new translation.
The inscription sat in the National Museums Scotland collection for over 130 years without being properly looked at until researchers discovered the document, according to Peter Liddel of the University of Manchester.
"This is one of a small number of inscriptions in Scotland, one of three ancient Athenian inscriptions in the city of Edinburgh, so it's absolutely exciting," Liddel told NPR's All Things Considered.
Wait wait, just as an aside: There are three "ancient Athenian inscriptions" in Edinburgh alone? That seems like...a lot.
Seriously though, these guys were more like a group of 21st-century high school students than you might think:
Researchers listed 31 names. Some of them are nicknames, such as Theogas for Theogenes and Dionysas for Dionysodoros. Using their shortened names was unusual, the researchers said, and likely indicates the graduates had a sense of camaraderie. They believe the 31 names are a subset of the full class, which was probably about 100 men.
See? Just like us!
And just to drive home how freaking old this thing is:
The end of the inscription translates to "of Caesar," which refers to the emperor Claudius, the fourth ruler of the ancient Roman Empire from A.D. 41 to 54. The phrasing means the inscription was made during his reign.
That's right: This baby was chunked out just a handful of years after Jesus Christ lived and died and rose and while Paul the Apostle was still founding church communities left and right in Asia Minor. It's old!
Thank goodness it only took them 130 years to realize what they had on hand!
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