Ancient Wisdom

In the Scottish Highlands between 1400 and 1746, clan chieftains maintained a practice called faire na h-oidhche—the night watch oath. At the coldest hour before dawn, typically around 3 AM, a rotating member of the clan would tend the communal...

In 14th century Shiraz, merchants, judges, and courtiers practiced a divination method called fal-e Hafez—opening the Divan of Hafez at random and interpreting the first poem they read as guidance for their question. But here's what modern...

In 687 BCE, Babylonian astronomers compiling the MUL.APIN tablets faced a problem that modern professionals would recognize instantly: clients demanding faster answers. Kings wanted to know whether to launch military campaigns, merchants needed...

In 15th century Cambay, Gujarat's bustling port city, Jain gem merchants controlled nearly 80% of the diamond trade flowing between India and Europe. These traders faced cutthroat competition, yet their business manuals—written in Prakrit and...

In the Mande Empire of 13th-century West Africa, griots—the hereditary oral historians who preserved centuries of genealogy, law, and story—practiced something that would horrify modern teachers: they deliberately stopped speaking at critical...

In 1258, as the Mongols burned Baghdad's libraries, the Persian poet Saadi returned to Shiraz after thirty years wandering through Damascus, Jerusalem, and Gujarat. He had survived bandits, been enslaved by Crusaders, and befriended everyone...

In the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco, between the 12th and 18th centuries, Berber agricultural communities practiced something that would horrify modern management consultants: they deliberately rotated their technical experts out of their roles...

In the bustling textile markets of 6th century Pāṭaliputra, Jain merchants followed a practice that seemed designed to lose them business: after completing a sale, they would not immediately pursue the next customer. Instead, they observed what...

In the grasslands of Kenya and Tanzania, a Maasai enkiguena—a junior elder managing community cattle herds—must remember not just which cow belongs to which family, but also each animal's lineage, health history, trading agreements, and...

In 1582, John Dee—mathematician to Queen Elizabeth I, cartographer, and England's most celebrated scholar—built a table in his Mortlake library with twelve chairs. He called it his "Table of Practice" for angelic conversations,...