Daily Life

Bronze Age grinding stone and pestle; Photo by Justin Singleton

People don't often think of life in ancient times. How did they live? How did they manage? How do we manage? lol.

Life, in general, was tough. What you see here is a grinding stone and hand grinder. This one has been worn almost all the way through. We walked onto a Bronze Age (prehistory) site in Cyprus to explore a bit, and I found about eight or nine of these. It was quite interesting, really. What would you do with these once they were "finished"? Well, I found two set as seats on a bench against the wall of a house. Several were also used to repair walls.

A friend of mine, Bill Weir (PhD [ABD] from University of Cincinnati) is writing his dissertation on common uses of pottery beyond the norm. When we see things in the archaeological record, we typically think, "Oh, that's a grinding stone; it was used to grind grains so that they could eat," or, "Oh, that's a topper/stopper for a small juglet." What we don't typically think is, "I bet they used this butt shaped grinding stone as a seat in their house," or, "I bet this topper was reused by the kids as a game token," but that is exactly what happens quite frequently.

I don't know about you guys, but when my dish washer went out a couple of years ago, I wasn't ready to buy a new one. The door wouldn't stay closed, so I put a bungee strap on it. The trigger wouldn't press, so I stuck a fork inside to catch the trigger better. ... We do so much "fixing" in our world with duct tape or hot glue guns or whatever, but we have to also imagine that the ancients were the same way. They were normal people. Husbands and wives argued about the finances. The kids would run and scream and beg for things that the neighbor kids had. ... But they survived.

We (humans) have always been very resilient people. We are pushed into corners, and we come out swinging for ourselves and for our families. You can go back archaeologically and find the same thing has always been true. From the Ice Ages (what I would argue is right after the flood) until today, we find people making a way to survive with what little they have. God knew what He was doing when He made us as we are.