Historical texts and legends are replete with royalty, nobility, heroes, high priests, viziers et al. Commoners usually get short shrift. So who was the earliest named commoner or slave?
I’m thinking that Shamhat the harlot from the Epic of Gilgamesh might qualify (Enkidu being a creation of the gods), but I’m sure there are those here who know the ancient texts.
Well, I was going to say Spartacus, but you’ve got me beat by a millenium or two.
Senenmut, perhaps? He was Queen Hatchepsut’s chief architect, and rumored to be her lover. The fact that he was a commoner made a bit of a scandal.
According to Wikipedia, the first record of him is when he started working on Hatchepsut’s tomb, in Year 7 of her reign. She is believed to have taken power somewhere between 1512 BC and 1479 BC.
He then has the advantage over Shamhat of having dates.
Aesop?
We also have the names of his parents (Ramose and Hatnofer) so that gives us commoners one more generation back. They were also probably a better fit for the OP’s definition of “commoner” then Senemunt, who was still a high court offical.
If you use “commoner” to mean “not a king”, Imhotep is almost a millennia earlier. But he was a high-priest, so probably doesn’t count under the OP’s definition.
That far back, were not the lines between the two positions somewhat blurred?
I don’t think so. The Pharaoh was a distinct position, and Imhotep was his inferior.
Googling though, Imhotep was also a son of noble parents, so almost certainly doesn’t count.
I’m pretty sure we have a lot of early commoner names though. My understanding is a lot of early cuneiform is simple economic writing of the form “A owes B six sheep”. I’d think A or B would probably be commoners in at least some cases.
There’s also a decent number of tombs in Egypt that give names and belong to (presumably relatively well off) commoners. The Tomb of they Pyramid builders, for example, dates back to something like 2200 and has a large number of named commoners.
Shamhat was no slave. Hagar in the other hand was a slave of Abraham who existed based on biblical writings around the 19th century B.C.
Wild guess: The Iliad’s Homer.
Is that like the famous Tolstoy biography “Leo Tolstoy” by Warren Piece?
(but more seriously, we’ve already got several candidates the predate Homer.)
True, but she was a temple prostitute. Not a high priestess.
I like it! My wild guess was really a lazy guess since I didn’t bother to check the dates, but I do remember being surprised at how far back the experts say the events described in the Iliad took place.
Weren’t the lines between them blurred in the earliest times?
I think years ago I had a question about the earliest known village or town(but not city). I dont remember if I ever asked though, or got any meaningful results.
So I understand your interest, and I am sure the questions could be linked.
Abraham’s tale is set in no particular time period and is likely a personification of the story of their ancestor’s travels from Mesopotamia up to Syria and back down into Canaan (probably the Amorites). This likely happened principally around 1600BC, not 1900.
More importantly, it’s fiction.
Perhaps not the earliest, but certainly one of the earliest.
Awesome! Thanks so much!
Job was pretty well-off, but I don’t think he was actually noble. Would he count?
The Book of Job was based upon the Babylonian Theodicy, with some important modifications. Job himself was probably not an historical person.