cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/36433522 (because what’s more memetic than a fart joke?)
Hope you don’t mind if I borrow this.
Explanation: This clay tablet contains an example of written fart humor. The same joke can be found in a collection of Sumerian proverbs dating back to 1900-1600 BC as well. Some things never change.
Line 5 referenced by the translation is immediately below the horizontal line in the tablet image above.
Additional reading:
Electronic Babylonian Library (tablet image and additional translation details): BM.98743
Internet Archive preview showing the translation in image above: Lambert, Wilfred G. 1963. Babylonian Wisdom Literature.
Wiki page on flatulence humor
Reuters article on this and other old jokes
Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, proverbs: collection 1 (translation of older source with link to transliteration of cuneiform)
My cuneiform is admittedly a little rusty.
You can use clay to avoid that, or stone too if it’s not a metal bearing ore.
I always just read in transliteration. Cuneiform is definitely my least favorite writing system that I’ve had to work with.
The young girl broke wind in her young husband’s bosom, you mean.
…
Her young husband, right?
Some of the translations say “young woman” instead which makes things seem less Trumpy. I don’t know enough to say more from the linguistic angle or about cultural norms of the time so my focus was primarily on the joke.
Eh…
It wasn’t a criticism of the translation, more a commentary on the historical problem of old men marrying children and the hope I’m wrong in my assumptions.
She farted on his chest
