Fairy secret
YOU highlighted the common plant white deadnettle (London Life, March 6). This plant always brings back fond memories of my grandmother, as she confided in me its secret surprise—if you turn the white flowers upside down and look inside, you will see the seeds, which resemble little pairs of shoes. My grandmother assured me they were fairy shoes and that’s where they kept them ready for dancing. I still can’t pass a deadnettle without looking for them.
Dawn Miller, South Wales
Methods of communication
A FASCINATING article by Ian Morton). Before ink, one is drawn to cuneiform script, made by pressing reed stalks into the damp surface of clay tablets, then baked in the sun to render such permanent. Many examples can be viewed in the British Museum and reveal a society so sophisticated that the mathematics and legal precedents still survive. Dating from about 3500BC to 3000BC, one example details the sexagesimal number system, still used today. Another reveals King Hammurabi (1754BC) establishing the first legal code in history, the most well-known section being Laws 196 and 200—‘an eye for an eye’ and ‘a tooth for a tooth’.
