Where is My Inkpot?

As the old saying goes, ''a pen is mightier than a sword,'' I can change that phrase to use simpler words which say,''a pen lives longer than a sword.''A strong king continues to survive as long as he still has the strength to defend his castle but once he passes on that would be the end of the hero. His life story is then left at the mercy of the local poets to immortalize his name, whether he shall be called great or small is all in the hands of a lowly poet. He therefore relies on others that are in a totally different kind of profession to keep his name remembered, poets may not be strong enough to carry swords or charge into battle with heavy body armor, but they have the skill needed to turn mere mortals into legends by the simple stroke of their pens.It's because of ancient scribes that we get a chance to glance into the lives of ordinary peoples in the ancient kingdoms of Sumer and Egypt, were it not for those clay tablets, stone statues, wall carvings, and papyrus scrolls, we would still be very ignorant about our ancient ancestors. It's hard to imagine that the Persian language, culture and most aspects of its history would have been lost forever were it not for the efforts of some poets who completely dedicated their lives to their work.Literature is so precious that its destruction can cast an entire kingdom into oblivion. Had some hooligans not set fire to the library of Alexandria over a millennia ago, Egypt and the world would be probably a different place now, there was so much valuable content lost in the burning of those scrolls, content that ranged from history, culture, ancient technologies, ancient medical practices and so much more. It's such a somber moment in history for literature in that so much of humanity was lost forever. Empires that survived the longest are those that closely guarded their local literature, they grew wealthier and became more prosperous over the centuries. The Mongol empire for instance was the largest land empire in history, yet so little of their history and cultu