A 3,200-Year-Old Attendance Record Has Been Making Rounds of the Internet and You’d Be Fired For Missing Work For These Reasons Today

Brad Dickson • Managing Editor

Feb 15, 2022 10:00 AM EST

This fascinating archeological artifact has been circulating the internet recently. Popping up in a multitude of sources.

It is a limestone etching dating back to 1250 BC that, as the reddit post below describes, is a workplace attendance record that also contains a myriad of somewhat comical excuses.

Of course, the internet has been having a field day with this. It's amazing to think that, after so much time, we still share things like this in common with our ancestors.

If you do call out of work for brewing beer, please let us know how that works out for you.

The artifact is currently housed at the British Museum, posted with the following description:

Description

Ostracon with register of attendance at work. Labelled 'Year 40' of Ramses II, it provides a workmen's register for 280 days of the year. There are twenty-four lines of New Egyptian hieratic on the front and twenty-one lines on the back. A list of forty names is arranged in columns on the right edge of each side, followed to the left by dates written in black ina horizontal line. Above most dates is a word or phrase in red, indicating the reason why this individual was absent from work on that date."

- British Museum

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This Reddit post came up on r/interestingasf**k 3 days ago.

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What a beauty. The red marks are missed days and their reasons described above.

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A Twitter user, Alison Fisk, also tweeted about the sheet.

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The sheet was also posted to Imgur and prompted many comments, a few of these are below:

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Recognize the meme?

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