HistoryArtifacts

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Just a community for everyone to share artifacts, reconstructions, or replicas for the historically-inclined to admire!

Generally, an artifact should be 100+ years old, but this is a flexible requirement if you find something rare and suitably linked to an era of history, not a strict rule. Anything over 100 is fair game regardless of rarity.

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^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)