Vacation Tracker

Calling in sick to work is apparently an ancient tradition. This 3200-year-old tablet is an attendance sheet. Reasons for worker absence include "embalming brother," "brewing beer," and "bitten by a scorpion". Ancient Egyptian employers kept track of employee days off in registers written on tablets. Known as ostracon, it's labelled 'Year 40' of Ramses II, and 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 in a 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. [📸 The Trustees of the British Museum]