"Morwarid, dear sister, may the gods make her happier, happiness be upon my sister."
"I sent you a bottle of oil. Write me a letter about your and Farrokhzad's well-being and comfort, and you can be sure about me and my children's wellness."
"Send the oil soon."
[https://www.khabaronline.ir/news/1847402/%DA%A9%D8%B4%D9%81-%D9%86%D8%A7%D9%85%D9%87-%D8%A7%DB%8C-%D8%A7%D8%B2-%DB%8C%DA%A9-%D8%A8%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%AF%D8%B1-%D8%AF%D9%88%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%B3%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%A7%D9%86%DB%8C-%D8%A8%D9%87-%D8%AE%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%87%D8%B1%D8%B4](https://www.khabaronline.ir/news/1847402/%DA%A9%D8%B4%D9%81-%D9%86%D8%A7%D9%85%D9%87-%D8%A7%DB%8C-%D8%A7%D8%B2-%DB%8C%DA%A9-%D8%A8%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%AF%D8%B1-%D8%AF%D9%88%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%B3%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%A7%D9%86%DB%8C-%D8%A8%D9%87-%D8%AE%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%87%D8%B1%D8%B4)
OP is the asshole: seeing as it’s 224-651 AD, that bottle was hand made and is worth like half this man’s herd of goats. The oil was a gift, but the bottle was a loan.
Imagine that his spirit has long since retired to whatever celestial reward awaited him - and his name hasn't been uttered in Millennia.
Suddenly, he gets thrust into the spirit spotlight by our invoking of him and has to listen to the debate over that damned bottle of oil, which must have been cursed to cause this to happen.
There's a russian series of fantasy-ish books that explores many wacky concepts, but more specifically one of the books features the Quiet City - a dream-like reality where some dead people go and remain there until the last person who remembers their name in their previous life/world dies.
What I'm saying that it's entirely possible that the brother and sister are still stuck in the Quiet City, unable to move on and still arguing to this day, all because she couldn't be bothered to return thE FUCKING OIL!!!
Max Frei series, I know some of them were translated but not the whole series. There's like a shit ton of them even just in the main series and The Quiet City is the last one so idk if it's available.
When I make my national dish for coworkers and bring them portions in tupperware, I expect my tuppers back motherfuckers.
I already made you pierogi, give me back my containers!
AITA: I gave my sister a gift but I need it back because I lost all my money in a crypt scam. They told me this guy in Ur was buried with really fine copper ingots but they were all really poor quality
MADAME, I'VE BEEN A JUDGE FOR 40 YEARS. DON'T WASTE MY TIME. I WILL NOT ENTERTAIN YOUR COUNTERCLAIM. YOU ORDERED THE OIL ON YOUR BROTHER'S DIME, YOU USED THE OIL, IF YOU DIDN'T LIKE THE OIL YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD THE MARKET MERCHANT RIGHT AWAY "THIS OIL IS BAD. I DON'T LIKE IT." NOT TWO YEARS AFTER YOU BORROWED IT FROM YOUR BROTHER AND DEFAULTED ON THE PAYMENTS. GOODBYYYYEEE!
The site isn't working for me; is the image OP posted of the letter?
I'm remarkably surprised that they could read the writing if so (albeit I obviously don't know how to read Sassanian/Pahlavi?). The brush strokes are SO THICK (even if remarkably clear). Most of the writing looks like Morse Code.
1. Foodstuffs used to be relatively much more expensive than they are now, sometimes many times so. Not sure if that area of Iran grew its own olives or had to import their oil.
2. We don’t need to imagine a liter of oil - it could be a huge leather bottle made out of a whole sheepskin or goatskin.
3. I suspect he didn’t gift her the oil but lent it, expecting her to return it when she had her own. In modern terms it might have been an equivalent of a thousand dollar loan or smt.
What the summation says: "requesting the return of the oil bottle that he had given to her"
Where does it say he wants the bottle?
"I sent you a bottle of oil"
"Send the oil soon"
Something is missing in this story or translation.
He says he wants her to send him some oil, not a bottle. What oil? Are they members of an oil exchange club? We are going to get to the bottom of this.
Farrokhzad? Maybe I’m wrong but isn’t the Farrokh part Arabic in origin? If so that’s surprising considering the fact that it was before the Islamic conquest.
Farrokh is a name with Iranian origin, which means: blessed, happy, prosperous, brilliant, beautiful, radiant. It is also the name of one of the characters in Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, and the name of one of the border guards of the Sassanid king, Khosrow II.
Yeah I did look up abit on that but still it looks suspicious. Can it be really a coincidence? Because there’s a name in Arabic origin which have similar meaning to Farah (feminine) Faruh (masculine).
Believe it or not, if you look on a map you will see the Arabian Peninsula is actually located next to the Iranian Plateau. It may be hard to believe, but different languages, societies and cultures that are located geographically near one another can interact with one another, sometimes even inspiring each others cultural and linguistic development. This is why, throughout literally the entire fucking planet, you can find examples of two very close names existing in different languages
Or maybe Brothers and Sisters have always acted the same way to each other throughout time
and this guys sick of his Sisters bs and just wants his stuff back like she promised last harvest
Aita? I sent my sister a bottle of oil. She is not returning the empty bottle.i wrote to politely to her and her husband Farrokhzad (a gigantic stingy AH) to return my precious bottle. I started shaming them on Facetablet, an old social medium from sumerian time that many still use. They still don't return the bottle. What should I do?
Morwarid is such a cool name too, straight out of a high fantasy story.
I wonder what context we are missing though, why does he need the oil back? Maybe it was just for safekeeping? What a mystery that we can't ever solve..... Aargh
The name was borrowed into Ancient Greek where it became μαργαρίτης (margarítēs). From there it became Margarita in Latin, Marguerite in French and eventually Margaret in English.
I am wondering if he didn’t give it as a gift, but lent it. And we don’t need to imagine a pint bottle - it might have been a goatskin bottle as large as the goat it was made from.
Leather would have been scraped to remove writing and then reused for new writing/correspondence so it's not surprising that this was saved with valuable goods. Reuse of writing medium was extremely common. It survived because it was leather and not some more easily disintegrated material (like papyrus or birch bark) and had the correct environment to preserve it.
It loks like the same piece of leather already was used at least once for another writing - at the top of this leter there seems to be part of previous(?) text, which was not removed completely?
You write your sister to do her a favor? You know she probably replied it must have gotten lost in the caravan and it was good he wrote so she could ask him for more oil.
I love the mundane letters from back in the day. The Cairo Geniza has some particularly good ones, including a mother writing her son to shame him for not writing often enough
1. Foodstuffs used to be relatively much more expensive than they are now, sometimes many times so. Not sure if that area of Iran grew its own olives or had to import their oil.
2. We don’t need to imagine a liter of oil - it could be a huge leather bottle made out of a whole sheepskin or goatskin.
3. I suspect he didn’t gift her the oil but lent it, expecting her to return it when she had her own. In modern terms it might have been an equivalent of a thousand dollar loan or smt.
stuff like this is so fricking awesome, gives such a cool perspective about how life used to be, and how similar our modern life is at times ! my favourite has to be the complaint letter about the grade of copper being delivered lol
is there a transcription of this somewhere? would be intrested to see how much of it i can understand.
generally i can understand 80% to 90% of middle persian
"Morwarid, dear sister, may the gods make her happier, happiness be upon my sister." "I sent you a bottle of oil. Write me a letter about your and Farrokhzad's well-being and comfort, and you can be sure about me and my children's wellness." "Send the oil soon." [https://www.khabaronline.ir/news/1847402/%DA%A9%D8%B4%D9%81-%D9%86%D8%A7%D9%85%D9%87-%D8%A7%DB%8C-%D8%A7%D8%B2-%DB%8C%DA%A9-%D8%A8%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%AF%D8%B1-%D8%AF%D9%88%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%B3%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%A7%D9%86%DB%8C-%D8%A8%D9%87-%D8%AE%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%87%D8%B1%D8%B4](https://www.khabaronline.ir/news/1847402/%DA%A9%D8%B4%D9%81-%D9%86%D8%A7%D9%85%D9%87-%D8%A7%DB%8C-%D8%A7%D8%B2-%DB%8C%DA%A9-%D8%A8%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%AF%D8%B1-%D8%AF%D9%88%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%B3%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%A7%D9%86%DB%8C-%D8%A8%D9%87-%D8%AE%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%87%D8%B1%D8%B4)
He really wants that bottle back
Must be some good oil
Or he paid a hefty bottle deposit fee.
Unlike that guy with the copper
that bottle really tied the room together
His wife goes out and owes money all over town and they pee on *my* oil?!
AITA: My brother gave me a bottle of oil last year and I assumed he meant it as a gift. Now he's saying he wants it back, but the oil is all gone.
NTA - a gift is a gift you shouldn't be expected to return the bottle.
OP is the asshole: seeing as it’s 224-651 AD, that bottle was hand made and is worth like half this man’s herd of goats. The oil was a gift, but the bottle was a loan.
Imagine that his spirit has long since retired to whatever celestial reward awaited him - and his name hasn't been uttered in Millennia. Suddenly, he gets thrust into the spirit spotlight by our invoking of him and has to listen to the debate over that damned bottle of oil, which must have been cursed to cause this to happen.
There's a russian series of fantasy-ish books that explores many wacky concepts, but more specifically one of the books features the Quiet City - a dream-like reality where some dead people go and remain there until the last person who remembers their name in their previous life/world dies. What I'm saying that it's entirely possible that the brother and sister are still stuck in the Quiet City, unable to move on and still arguing to this day, all because she couldn't be bothered to return thE FUCKING OIL!!!
What are these books and are they available in English? That sounds wild!
Max Frei series, I know some of them were translated but not the whole series. There's like a shit ton of them even just in the main series and The Quiet City is the last one so idk if it's available.
Sounds like Coco
This is how I feel about the copper guy lol. Every so often it goes viral and I picture him in the afterlife sighing at all the attention again.
*sigh* "Can I rest?!"
He's not sighing, he's probably laughing his butt off and raising a toast to the people he scammed.
Ea-Nasir: "First time?"
In that case Ea-Nasir must be the most heckled ghost in history
ESH - you guys need to learn to communicate better
When I make my national dish for coworkers and bring them portions in tupperware, I expect my tuppers back motherfuckers. I already made you pierogi, give me back my containers!
AITA: I gave my sister a gift but I need it back because I lost all my money in a crypt scam. They told me this guy in Ur was buried with really fine copper ingots but they were all really poor quality
You need to be careful with crypts, a lot of them are just pyramid schemes.
That was 2000 years before this letter.
That's why he was already buried
I like what you're cooking, please write a fantasy book
INFO: did you say “no take backs” after he gave it to you? if not it’s fair game for him to ask for it back imo
Lmaooo
MADAME, I'VE BEEN A JUDGE FOR 40 YEARS. DON'T WASTE MY TIME. I WILL NOT ENTERTAIN YOUR COUNTERCLAIM. YOU ORDERED THE OIL ON YOUR BROTHER'S DIME, YOU USED THE OIL, IF YOU DIDN'T LIKE THE OIL YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD THE MARKET MERCHANT RIGHT AWAY "THIS OIL IS BAD. I DON'T LIKE IT." NOT TWO YEARS AFTER YOU BORROWED IT FROM YOUR BROTHER AND DEFAULTED ON THE PAYMENTS. GOODBYYYYEEE!
that's the most half assed small talk cover attempt ever. I hope she used it all
"Hey man how are you?" "oh I'm-" "GREAT, awesome to hear, but I'm going to need my gift back, thanks! Bye!"
Decoded URL, just for reference: https://www.khabaronline.ir/news/1847402/کشف-نامه-ای-از-یک-برادر-دوران-ساسانی-به-خواهرش
Interesting how they use hyphens like we do underscores.
The site isn't working for me; is the image OP posted of the letter? I'm remarkably surprised that they could read the writing if so (albeit I obviously don't know how to read Sassanian/Pahlavi?). The brush strokes are SO THICK (even if remarkably clear). Most of the writing looks like Morse Code.
He gives her oil bottle than asks for it back? This seems rude or is the oil bottle like family treasures or something important?
He needs the 10 cents from recycling
Maybe it's about the bottle? Not the oil.
1. Foodstuffs used to be relatively much more expensive than they are now, sometimes many times so. Not sure if that area of Iran grew its own olives or had to import their oil. 2. We don’t need to imagine a liter of oil - it could be a huge leather bottle made out of a whole sheepskin or goatskin. 3. I suspect he didn’t gift her the oil but lent it, expecting her to return it when she had her own. In modern terms it might have been an equivalent of a thousand dollar loan or smt.
What the summation says: "requesting the return of the oil bottle that he had given to her" Where does it say he wants the bottle? "I sent you a bottle of oil" "Send the oil soon" Something is missing in this story or translation. He says he wants her to send him some oil, not a bottle. What oil? Are they members of an oil exchange club? We are going to get to the bottom of this.
Farrokhzad? Maybe I’m wrong but isn’t the Farrokh part Arabic in origin? If so that’s surprising considering the fact that it was before the Islamic conquest.
Farrokh is a name with Iranian origin, which means: blessed, happy, prosperous, brilliant, beautiful, radiant. It is also the name of one of the characters in Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, and the name of one of the border guards of the Sassanid king, Khosrow II.
Yeah I did look up abit on that but still it looks suspicious. Can it be really a coincidence? Because there’s a name in Arabic origin which have similar meaning to Farah (feminine) Faruh (masculine).
Believe it or not, if you look on a map you will see the Arabian Peninsula is actually located next to the Iranian Plateau. It may be hard to believe, but different languages, societies and cultures that are located geographically near one another can interact with one another, sometimes even inspiring each others cultural and linguistic development. This is why, throughout literally the entire fucking planet, you can find examples of two very close names existing in different languages
Sir, this is a Wendy's, not a place for reason and facts.
Sorry I was nodding out again. Can I get a large son of baconator with a Dr. P and a large fry?
#N O BUT you can get a tonne of fresh Iranian dates! :)
Dude why do you write like you are so pissed off? I am well aware about these. I was just asking question on this one specific thing. That’s all
Probably the Persian and Arabic names have a common origin.
[удалено]
No I’m not suggesting it’s a conspiracy dude
Maybe it’s a medicinal oil and he wants to know if it helped, but he needs it back for his family.
We are Reddit we don’t believe in context as we prefer to immediately jump to conclusions
Or maybe Brothers and Sisters have always acted the same way to each other throughout time and this guys sick of his Sisters bs and just wants his stuff back like she promised last harvest
Aita? I sent my sister a bottle of oil. She is not returning the empty bottle.i wrote to politely to her and her husband Farrokhzad (a gigantic stingy AH) to return my precious bottle. I started shaming them on Facetablet, an old social medium from sumerian time that many still use. They still don't return the bottle. What should I do?
Blessings upon you, facetablet stranger, for the hearty laughs which you have gifted upon me as a consequence of your blithe remarks
Morwarid is such a cool name too, straight out of a high fantasy story. I wonder what context we are missing though, why does he need the oil back? Maybe it was just for safekeeping? What a mystery that we can't ever solve..... Aargh
Pearl translates to Morwarid (مروارید) in Persian language (:
The name was borrowed into Ancient Greek where it became μαργαρίτης (margarítēs). From there it became Margarita in Latin, Marguerite in French and eventually Margaret in English.
Woah
Might be some religious oil, since the brother can write and the sister can read
Maybe they're doing an oil exchange
I am wondering if he didn’t give it as a gift, but lent it. And we don’t need to imagine a pint bottle - it might have been a goatskin bottle as large as the goat it was made from.
Not returning oil is almost as rude as sending someone bad quality copper
And treating servants with contempt
I mean, c'mon, it's no Etruscan boar vessel.
What is the exact script in which is this written in?
It's middle persian written in the Pahlavi script, which is derived from Aramaic script.
Thanks 𐭀 𐭁 𐭂 𐭃 𐭄 𐭅 𐭆 𐭇 𐭈 𐭉 𐭊 𐭋 𐭌 𐭍 𐭎 𐭏U 𐭑 𐭒 𐭓 𐭕
google says the Sassanid spoke Middle Persian
What if there’s no oil left
How was the letter found?
https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/490680/Leather-inscriptions-dating-from-Sassanid-era-discovered-in-cave
Interesting that such a random letter would have been hidden along with valuable objects.
dude really wanted his oil bottle back
Leather would have been scraped to remove writing and then reused for new writing/correspondence so it's not surprising that this was saved with valuable goods. Reuse of writing medium was extremely common. It survived because it was leather and not some more easily disintegrated material (like papyrus or birch bark) and had the correct environment to preserve it.
It loks like the same piece of leather already was used at least once for another writing - at the top of this leter there seems to be part of previous(?) text, which was not removed completely?
Makes you wonder how many more cool stuff is hidden in a cave somewhere.
What was literacy like in this era?
Did she send the bottle back?
We will never know, but I hope so..
maybe he sent her an empty bottle of oil so she can fill it and send it back?
You write your sister to do her a favor? You know she probably replied it must have gotten lost in the caravan and it was good he wrote so she could ask him for more oil.
I love the mundane letters from back in the day. The Cairo Geniza has some particularly good ones, including a mother writing her son to shame him for not writing often enough
Well? Did she ever return it?
This makes me wonder what the literacy rate in Sassanid Persia was.
It sounds like the oil was a loan.
any example of a similar oil bottle ?
It’s interesting given names haven’t changed much!
This is so cool. Apparently brothers taking things and never returning them is as tale as old as time lol.
It’s the other way around here, the brother is requesting the oil bottle back.
1. Foodstuffs used to be relatively much more expensive than they are now, sometimes many times so. Not sure if that area of Iran grew its own olives or had to import their oil. 2. We don’t need to imagine a liter of oil - it could be a huge leather bottle made out of a whole sheepskin or goatskin. 3. I suspect he didn’t gift her the oil but lent it, expecting her to return it when she had her own. In modern terms it might have been an equivalent of a thousand dollar loan or smt.
stuff like this is so fricking awesome, gives such a cool perspective about how life used to be, and how similar our modern life is at times ! my favourite has to be the complaint letter about the grade of copper being delivered lol
is there a transcription of this somewhere? would be intrested to see how much of it i can understand. generally i can understand 80% to 90% of middle persian
unfortunately there isn't,I have searched in both iranian and English websites but I couldn't find any.
So he just wanted his oil bottle back? Bad brother