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THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2009
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Dirty Jokes of the Ancients Unearthed

Academics discover 3,000-year-old Sumerian fart joke

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(Newser) – Academics studying ancient texts have discovered bawdy jokes that wouldn't be out of place in a Farrelly brothers movie, the Daily Telegraph reports. "What hangs at a man’s thigh and wants to poke the hole that it’s often poked before?" asks a thousand-year-old Anglo-Saxon manuscript.  "Answer: A key.”

Researchers combing the texts of lost civilizations for humor say that the ancients laughed at much the same things people do to day. The oldest surviving joke is a fart gag found on 3,000-year-old stone tablets from Babylonia: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial: a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap."

"Man is even more eager to copulate than a donkey," reads an Egyptian hieroglyphic from thousands of years ago."His purse is what restrains him."   ((c) Orin Optiglot)
Researchers have found bawdy jokes written in heiroglyphics and inscribed on delicate thousand-year-old manuscripts.
Researchers have found bawdy jokes written in heiroglyphics and inscribed on delicate thousand-year-old manuscripts.   (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
Academics studying ancient manuscripts and stone tablets have discovered people laughed at much the same things thousands of years ago as they do today.
Academics studying ancient manuscripts and stone tablets have discovered people laughed at much the same things thousands of years ago as they do today.   ((c) jfeuchter)
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