HOME |
RSS | 
Did
you hear the one about the jokes inscribed on ancient Babylonian tablets?
No, that's no joke: researchers studying a 3,500-year old tablet from ancient Mesopotamia have intepreted riddles and jokes about (surprise!) sex, politics and beer.
Some of the decoded riddles are crude and sexual, while others are complex and metaphorical. One of them reveals what appears to be a bit of political humor, albeit with a dark, violent twist.
He gouged out the eye:
It is not the fate of a dead man.
He cut the throat: A dead man (-Who is it?)The answer is a governor.
"This riddle describes the power of a governor namely to act as a judge who punishes or sentences to death," write Streck and Wasserman in the journal article.
Wasserman has seen examples in other Akkadian texts of people criticizing their leaders. "We have some interesting traces of political criticism, and [I] might say even say political anger," he said. "It could be a kind of political humor expressed in this governor riddle."
While the governor riddle reflects a sort of gallows' humor, others are much lighter.
In(?) your mouth and your teeth (or: your urine)
constantly stared at you
the measuring vessel of your lord (-What is it?)The answer, it appears, is beer.
Previously on Neatorama: World's Oldest Joke Traced to Sumeria in 1900 B.C.
These
ain't no pirate riddles for no dumb landlubbers! Kevin Shay wrote a list
of sophisticated pirate riddles for McSweeney:
Q: What’s a pirate’s favorite aspect of computational linguistics?
A: PARRRsing sentences.Q: Of which concept shared by Jungian psychology and Northrop Frye’s literary theory are pirates especially fond?
A: ARRRchetype.
Don't forget to check out our Pirate Shop | Pirate's Favorite Amino Acid
Comments Off
Actually, string theory is something completely different, but it’s a cute title for this geometry problem at Futility Closet. A boy has his toy boat in the water, and he is pulling it to shore by a string. If he pulls in one yard of string, will the boat advance a yard, or less than a yard, or more than a yard? The answer may surprise you. Link -via TYWKIWDBI
Kind of sounds like a new designer dog hybrid, but “droodle” is a mix of “doodle” and “riddle,” a simple line drawing with a complicated answer as to what it is. A famous one adorns the cover of Frank Zappa’s album “Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch,” which is exactly what the droodle depicts. They’re silly and almost impossible to guess, but it’s fun to try. I’m really partial to the one on the left. See if you can guess what it is before you click the answer.
