I spend a fair amount of time on ancient history and trying to grasp what people meant in drawings/sculpture.
The purse thing is intriguing. You find it in Australian wall drawings....in Egypt....in Iraq...in Central America/Peru.
They all symbolize the purse. It's never children with the purse....it's always men. The purse is never huge (it's usually big enough to carry your lunch, three or four books, or a six-pack of beer). Women are never depicted in carrying it.
Oddly, nothing seems to be hanging out of the purse....like you'd see in modern times.
You never have a stone carving where the person is removing something from the purse....like a bag of peanuts, or a comb, or a rock.
My general belief....I think forty-odd generations have passed and the story that gets passed down....is that so-and-so carried a bag. The stone-carver guys are called in and told to chisel up a story, and probably ask questions about the size of the bag....but the 40th guy telling the story has no real idea about the size or purpose of the bag. So it gets carved out, and a thousand folks are hustled through the 'story-telling' hour per day.....with most standing there....asking about the stupid bag story, with no answer.
The legend has to carry on about 'boss-such-and-such'....with a bag. But beyond the size and hand grip.....that's it. There might be 3,000 to 10,000 years from the actual day when purse-guy existed, and the stone-carver laid out his best work.
I would imagine the stone-carver sat there for years after that....waking up in the middle of the night....wondering....why the hell did I chisel that stupid 'purse'? It has no meaning or purpose.
This worldwide use of the 'purse'? Part of me wants to suggest it was one single guy.....not forty-odd groups with forty-odd purses being carried.
In this status of a traveler....going from land to land? The odds are....he carried a compass and a map in the purse....nothing more.
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