26 The Progressive Code of Hammurabi
King Hammurabi of Babylon inscribed 282 laws on a stone stele, now known as the Code of Hammurabi, nearly 2,000 years before the first parts of the Bible. His code included not just harsh punishments like “an eye for an eye,” but also the right to be born a free man, protections against incest, debt-labor limitations, and rules about minimum wages.
27. The Code of Hammurabi gave brewing and tavern-keeping a distinctly female domain. Every law referring to a tavern owner used the pronoun “she,” showing that women ran the beer trade and managed their own establishments. Though few other professions were open to them, Sumerian and Babylonian women turned brewing into both a livelihood and a legal right-making them history’s earliest known brewmasters.
28. The Sumerians worshipped Ninkasi, the goddess of beer, and even composed a hymn to her that doubled as the world’s oldest brewing recipe. A few centuries later, the Code of Hammurabi took beer even more seriously, so seriously that bartenders who watered it down were executed. The laws also forbade selling beer for money; it could only be traded for barley, and those who disobeyed faced death by drowning.
29. Archaeologists discovered a clay tablet from Nippur (in modern-day Iraq) etched with one of the world’s oldest known map. Its has been dated to 2100–2000 BCE and it depicts a small region of Mesopotamia with labeled rivers and cities, showing that ancient scribes already viewed their land from a cartographic perspective.
30. In the Old Babylonian period (c. 1900-1600 BCE), a slave girl named Dabitum penned (or commissioned) a heartbreaking letter to her master, informing him she had suffered a miscarriage. She addressed the absent father directly, expressing anguish and pleading for assistance.
31 Babylon’s 3,500-Year-Old ‘Your Mom’ Joke
In 1976, scholars uncovered a Babylonian clay tablet dating back to roughly 1500 BCE, inscribed with what might be the world’s oldest “your mom” joke. The riddle goes: “…of your mother is by the one who has intercourse with her. What/who is it?” – with no answer provided. Even across millennia, someone somewhere was getting roasted in ancient Mesopotamia.
32. Around 1200 BCE in Babylonian Mesopotamia, a woman named Tapputi-Belatekallim (literally “female palace overseer”) appears in a cuneiform tablet as a royal perfume-maker. She engineered mixtures using flowers, oils, calamus, myrrh, and resins, then added water or solvents and distilled and filtered repeatedly, employing the oldest known still. Because her recipe was attributed “from the mouth of Tapputi,” scholars credit her as history’s earliest recorded chemist and one of the few women named in ancient scientific texts.
33. The oldest known image of a handshake appears on an Assyrian relief from the 9th century BCE, showing King Shalmaneser III clasping hands with Babylonian King Marduk-Zakir-Shumi I to seal an alliance. Carved nearly 3,000 years ago, it captures a gesture still used to express trust and diplomacy. Long before contracts or signatures, a simple handshake was already binding kings together in stone.
34. Long before modern road surfacing, the Sumerians were using natural bitumen, a form of asphalt, as mortar between bricks, as glue for carvings, and even to secure the eyes of statues. The Babylonians took it further, waterproofing ships, temples, and entire city walls. According to Herodotus, the massive walls of Babylon were sealed with hot bitumen, and by c. 800 BCE, Queen Semiramis used the same material to line the Euphrates Tunnel, making it one of history’s first waterproof megastructures.
35. The famous Tower of Babel story in the Bible may trace back to a real Mesopotamian structure called Etemenanki, built in Babylon under King Nebuchadnezzar II (6th century BCE). Rising to an estimated 300 feet, it towered above the city and served as a grand ziggurat dedicated to the god Marduk. While the Bible frames it as a vanity project punished by divine confusion, Etemenanki stood for centuries as a testament to Babylon’s architectural ambition.
36 Nebuchadnezzar’s Madness of Boanthropy
Nebuchadnezzar II, Babylon’s longest-reigning and most powerful king, may have suffered from boanthropy, a rare psychological disorder in which a person believes themselves to be a cow or an ox. Ancient accounts describe the mighty ruler living in the wilderness, eating grass, and losing his reason before eventually recovering. Whether legend or early psychiatry, his case remains one of history’s strangest royal afflictions.
37. In 539 BCE, after conquering Babylon, Cyrus the Great issued what’s now known as the Cyrus Cylinder, inscribed on baked clay. The text declares his intention to allow religious freedom and to repatriate displaced peoples, notably the Jews, back to their homelands. Centuries later, scholars hail it as one of history’s first known expressions of human-rights ideals.
38. Around 530 BCE, Neo-Babylonian princess Ennigaldi-Nanna founded what’s now considered the world’s earliest museum in Ur. Her museum displayed catalogued and labelled relics from as far back as the 20th century BCE, spanning 1,500 years of Mesopotamian heritage.
39. In all of human history, only three civilizations independently created a symbol for zero-the Babylonians, the Mayans, and the Indians. The Babylonians used a double wedge to mark an empty space in numbers, the Mayans carved a shell symbol, and Indian scholars later formalized zero as both a placeholder and a number.
40. Around 2,500 years ago, Irdabama was one of the most powerful businesswomen of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. She managed vast estates spanning Iran, Babylonia, Syria, and Egypt, employing hundreds of workers and overseeing a thriving trade in wine and grain. She travelled with her entourage and even issued official seals.
41 Babylon’s Calculus of Jupiter
More than 2,000 years ago, Babylonian mathematicians in modern-day Iraq were using geometry centuries ahead of their time. By sketching trapezoids beneath a curve, they could estimate the area under it. They used this method to calculate how far Jupiter had traveled across the night sky. Long before Europe’s 14th-century scholars rediscovered the technique, Babylon’s stargazers were already doing the math that would one day form the roots of calculus.
42. According to Sumerian mythology, the god Enki created the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in a way only ancient myth could imagine, by masturbating into their empty channels. His divine act was believed to fill the riverbeds with life-giving water, symbolizing fertility and creation.
43. Long before it became a Christian emblem, the cross appeared in ancient Mesopotamia and Babylon as a solar symbol linked to gods like Tammuz and Mithra. These early versions represented the sun, life, and divinity, not crucifixion. When Emperor Constantine adopted the cross in the 4th century CE after his reported vision “of a cross before the sun,” Christianity absorbed a symbol that had already carried deep pagan meaning for millennia.
44. Ancient Babylon initiated the seven-day week, dedicating each day to one of the seven visible celestial bodies: the Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn. This cosmic rhythm shaped the Babylonian calendar and later spread through Jewish, Greek, and Roman cultures.
45. For centuries, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon graced lists of the Seven Wonders with lush terraces cascading over city walls. Yet no Babylonian source ever mentions them, and archaeologists have never unearthed definitive remains. That absence has led many scholars to argue that the Gardens might be pure myth, or perhaps the legend’s roots lie elsewhere, misattributed over time.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
46 Tiamat’s Tail and the Milky Way
In the Babylonian creation epic Enūma Eliš, the god Marduk defeats the primordial sea dragon Tiamat and uses her body to form the universe. From her severed tail, he fashions the shimmering band of stars we now call the Milky Way.
47. To ancient Babylonian villagers living on natural levees along the lower part of the Tigris and Euphrates, a major flood could have made it look like their whole world was under water in all directions. To them, the inundation would feel like a universal deluge, not just a local disaster. That perception may help explain why flood myths, like Noah’s, resonate so strongly across cultures.
48. According to Herodotus, the Babylonians held yearly auctions of maidens to arrange marriages. The most beautiful women were bid on first, with that money being used to fund dowries to encourage men to marry the less desired-those deemed plain, poor, or disabled.
49. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, women in ancient Babylon were once required to visit the Temple of Aphrodite and have sex with a stranger as an act of sacred devotion. The ritual was said to occur only once in a woman’s lifetime, symbolizing fertility and service to the goddess. Modern scholars, however, argue that Herodotus likely misunderstood or exaggerated Babylonian customs, turning myth and bias into one of history’s most persistent cultural misconceptions.
50. During the 1980s, Saddam Hussein declared himself the modern reincarnation of Babylon’s ancient ruler, King Nebuchadnezzar II. To cement the connection, he poured millions into rebuilding the ruins of Babylon and constructed a colossal palace overlooking the site, adorned with carvings of himself in Babylonian dress. Even the bricks bore his name beside Nebuchadnezzar’s.
RE: Fact #38 (Ennigaldi’s Museum of Ur) – That’s so cool! It’s wild to me that in Ancient Rome, they actually called a part of Rome “Ancient Rome.” It really makes you think about how much older humanity is than most people realize. I’ve always thought it would be cool to add an extra zero to the year to better show how long civilization has been around, especially since farming started about 10,000 years ago.
RE: Fact #19 (Sumerian Students and Their Homework) – Arabic numbers really make things a lot simpler.
RE: Fact #15 (Harran and the Moon-God Cult) – I’m curious about how many Wikipedia articles have a section that just says, “…and then the Mongols came.”
RE: Fact #37 (Cyrus Cylinder: The First Charter) – Makes sense to enjoy some freedom after going through a tough time.
There’s some evidence that Nabonidus, the last king of Babylon, attempted a religious reform where he tried to replace the cult of the main god Marduk with the Moon god Sin. So, it’s possible that many people actually saw Cyrus’ conquest and the religious freedom that came with it as a positive change.
RE: Fact #11 (Babylon’s 4,000-Year-Old Lullaby) – Found the lyrics:
Little baby in the dark house
You have seen the sun rise
Why are you crying?
Why are you screaming?
You have disturbed the house god
“Who has disturbed me?” says the house god
It is the baby who has disturbed you
“Who scared me?” says the house god
The baby has disturbed you
The baby has scared you
Making noises like a drunkard
Who cannot sit still on his stool
He has disturbed your sleep
“Call the baby now,” says the house god
RE: Fact #2 (Stone Pillows of Mesopotamia) – So, I’m thinking we should only keep the really old, hard parts of those “pillows.” Makes sense, right, considering how long they’ve been around? Any softer stuff they might have used, like leaves or whatever, would probably be long gone by now.
RE: Fact #9 (The Lost Tunnel Beneath Euphrates) – Has anyone found any solid proof it’s real?
The old writers’ methods would totally work. But, the writer mentioned the tunnel wasn’t used for like 500 years before they wrote about it. They used asphalt for waterproofing foundations and boats – the Babylonians were big fans, and it would’ve kept that tunnel dry. After the Persians took over, Babylon wasn’t as important, and by the time the Greeks showed up, it was falling apart.
RE: Fact #12 (Gilgamesh and the Great Flood) – Yeah, there’s a ton of overlap in myths from that time and place. You can see a lot of reframed Babylonian and Zoroastrian myths in the Old Testament.
RE: Fact #28 (Ninkasi and the Beer Laws) – So, Ninkasi was actually the goddess of beer and brewing! The hymn to her apparently talks about bappir, which is a type of beer bread, and the filtering vat that makes a nice sound. When they poured the filtered beer from that vat, it was apparently compared to the powerful Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
RE: Fact #20 (Iddin-Sin’s Letter to Mom) – Seems like kids are pretty much the same after 3800 years.
RE: Fact #20 (Iddin-Sin’s Letter to Mom) – Zinu, Iddin-Sin is sending you this message: Shamash, Marduk, and Ilabrat bless you with good health for my sake. Every year, the young men’s clothes here get nicer, but you’ve let mine get worse and worse, making them poorer and skimpier. We’re using up wool here like bread, and you’ve made me ragged clothes. The son of Adad-iddinam, whose father is just an assistant to mine, has two new outfits. Meanwhile, you make a fuss even over one set of clothes for me. Even though you gave birth to me and his mother only adopted him, his mother loves him, but you don’t love me!
RE: Fact #23 (Babylon’s Triangle Before Pythagoras) – If the Babylonians wanted credit for something, they should’ve made it way easier to read, ’cause I can’t make heads or tails of it.
RE: Fact #20 (Iddin-Sin’s Letter to Mom) – It’s funny how, the more you learn about history, the more you see that things really don’t change. I was just looking at a letter where a kid was writing to their parents about not getting enough nice stuff, and I’ve also seen another letter from Rome where a dad was griping about his son being lazy and how the younger generation has a really bad work ethic.
There’s this old Sumerian letter where a dad is giving his son advice about becoming a scribe. Besides other stuff, he tells his son to steer clear of the kids hanging out in the city square because they’re a bad influence.
I’m curious if there’s a book that collects a bunch of these letters.
RE: Fact #10 (Babylon’s Mass-Produced Erotic Art) – It’s kinda funny how people always link these things to religion. Honestly, it’s just porn. Can you imagine folks in the future trying to explain away all the weird kinks we’re into now as being tied to religion?
Back around the year 2000, some media reports talked about a mating ritual they jokingly called “delivering pizza.” Turns out, they weren’t talking about actual pizza, but something else entirely.
So, the idea is that how much, what kind, and how fancy the pizza ingredients were might have been a way to show off how many resources and how much free time someone had, basically to show they’d be a good mate. It’s thought this could be a leftover from when females were pickier because of survival stuff, but back then, it seems like the mating was always successful, even if the pizza wasn’t up to par or if another partner showed up during the whole process.
RE: Fact #30 (Dabitum’s Plea from Babylon) – Who did she write that letter to, her baby daddy or her slave owner?
The letter really makes it sound like she’s super invested. It says she was his “slave” but it also seems like she wants to see him in person, whether it’s to help her through the miscarriage or just in case she dies from it too.
The way this is written makes it sound like she was raped by her slave master.
RE: Fact #26 (The Progressive Code of Hammurabi) – Just a thought on lex talionis – it’s actually a pretty limiting law. Basically, it means punishment has to match the crime exactly. Before these kinds of laws, people could punish crimes however they felt was right.
So, back then, they also used this to settle family vendettas, which were a big deal. Instead of families feuding for ages, if one person took out another, that person would get taken out too. That way, the feud was over.
RE: Fact #38 (Ennigaldi’s Museum of Ur) – Ennigaldi’s dad, Nabonidus, was really into old stuff and fixing antiques. He’s basically considered the first real archeologist. He showed her how to appreciate ancient artifacts, which inspired her to set up her own museum for them. The artifacts were mostly from southern Mesopotamia. Nabonidus himself had dug up a lot of them, some dating back to the 20th century BCE. Nebuchadnezzar had also gathered some of them before.
I’m just going to stare in awe at the idea of an “ancient Mesopotamian archeologist.”
RE: Fact #44 (Babylon’s Seven Celestial Days) – Yeah, we totally use those Norse gods for some English day names, but a lot of languages still call Wednesday after Mercury.
You can totally see the planetary connections in the days of the week between English and French. For example, in French, “Lundi” is linked to “Lune,” which is Moon in English. “Mardi” connects to Mars, and so on, all the way to “Vendredi” and Venus. And in English, Saturday comes from Saturn, and Sunday is all about the Sun.
RE: Fact #12 (Gilgamesh and the Great Flood) – It’s really interesting how many themes seem to be borrowed across different stories. Like, the Epic of Gilgamesh has details that sound super familiar, such as a flood lasting “forty days and forty nights” and a dove sent out with a branch. Those specific elements popping up in the Bible feels like more than just coincidence.
And there’s also a story in there about a woman eating a fruit, which is pretty similar to the Eve story. Plus, some people point out that the God of the Bible was originally part of a larger group of gods before Abraham started focusing solely on Yahweh.
Honestly, the history behind these old myths is fascinating! It would be even cooler if more people treated them as interesting stories from the past instead of things to live by and base big decisions like US policy on.
It’s wild when you dive into the deep lore of the Zoroastrian / Achaemenid Persian empire and realize a lot of Jewish and Christian beliefs are pretty much taken from them, especially from when they conquered the Levant.
RE: Fact #27 (Women Brewers of Babylon) – That’s a cool piece of history about the Code of Hammurabi! It’s wild to think it’s from around 1750 BC, which is like 3700 years ago. It really gives you a look into Babylonian society back then.
RE: Fact #8 (Kushim: The First Named Human) – Around five thousand years ago, there was a guy who worked as an accountant. We don’t know if he was tall or short, or if people liked him or thought he was a total outcast.
But here we are, thousands of years after he was alive, and people still know his name.
It makes you wonder what he would have thought about that.
He might have been a passionate poet and would probably hate being known as an accountant.
RE: Fact #15 (Harran and the Moon-God Cult) – Walking through there must feel like going back in time. The place has been lived in constantly for longer than pretty much anywhere else on Earth. Those cool beehive-shaped houses were built using old-school methods – they’re naturally good at keeping a consistent temperature, and some families were still living in them not too long ago.
It’s wild to think that Harran is even mentioned in the Bible as where Abraham lived before he headed to Canaan. While Christianity and Islam were taking over everywhere else, this city kept worshipping Sinfor for over 1,500 years after most people had forgotten about those gods. The people who lived there were called Sabians and had this amazing mix of ancient star worship blended with later philosophical ideas. It’s kind of like finding a town today that still seriously worships Zeus.
The Sabeans were also instrumental in helping the Abbasids translate Greek texts into Arabic. Baghdad used to be a major hub for science, but it unfortunately declined over time. The Crusader Kings 3 RICE mod does a great job of showcasing this with the character Thābit ibn Qurra.
It’s a wild feeling to visit places where religious figures have been.
RE: Fact #50 (Saddam’s Attempt to Rebuild Babylon) – And he had a Quran written in his own blood. I guess if he’s holy and the direct ancestor of prophet Muhammad, then this Quran must be magical, following that logic. But I figure this is probably the one Quran muslims wouldn’t mind you burning.
Burning the Quran is an acceptable way to get rid of it.
Another approach is to just let them break down on their own. I remember reading about a cave where they’d put old Qurans to let the humidity naturally decay them over time.
RE: Fact #13 (Akitu: Babylon’s First New Year) – So, it turns out January 1st became New Year’s Day because the ancient Romans were eager to get new Consuls in place to fight some rebels in Spain. They apparently couldn’t wait until March anymore!
RE: Fact #25 (Hammurabi’s Deadly Building Code) – You could get seriously hurt for a lot of things back then.
Yeah, I think you could get seriously hurt or even killed if you were caught with someone else’s spouse.
I’m pretty sure that still goes on in some groups nowadays.
RE: Fact #37 (Cyrus Cylinder: The First Charter) – There are streets named after him in Israel. He’s seen as a well-regarded historical figure.
It’s funny how the Greeks and Hebrews saw the Persians completely differently; they were like night and day in their views of that empire.
Cyrus actually got some pretty positive reviews from the Greeks. It was Darius and Xerxes who kind of got the backhanded compliments.
RE: Fact #6 (Babylon’s Base-60 Legacy) – The Sumerians apparently counted in groups of 12 using their thumbs and finger segments, sort of like an abacus. That’s pretty neat!
Yeah, they’d use the fingers on their other hand to keep track of groups of 12 as they counted. That’s how you get 12 times 5 equals 60. Way faster than just counting to 10!
RE: Fact #25 (Hammurabi’s Deadly Building Code) – After the big fires in London back in 1666, cities got built more closely packed. Because of the risks that come with buildings being so close together and taller, rules were put in place. These rules covered things like building shared walls between houses and banning risky stuff, like chimneys made of wood.
Seriously, wooden chimneys. Some folks thought it was a good idea to make the pipe for your fire out of something that catches fire pretty easily.
Learned a ton from you all about wood, chimneys, and old building methods. Thanks for pointing me toward that rabbit hole, I totally fell right into it.
So, when you think “wooden chimney,” it’s not actually a chimney *made* of wood. It’s more like a wooden mold that gets coated with clay on both sides, and then it’s baked by the fire. It still sounds pretty risky, especially back when people had their wood stoves going all day and night for heat and cooking. I built an outdoor earthen oven myself using wood forms, and it gets super hot, almost hot enough for forging. These are building techniques that have been around for ages.
People have been dying in house fires for thousands of years.
That’s a pretty smart idea, even if it sounds a bit wild! Wood is good because it’s long, straight, and easy to shape, it doesn’t burn well when it’s green, it’s super cheap, and way lighter than other options. Plus, there are ways to make wood fire-resistant by burning it, and you could even soak it in something fireproof from back then. All that said? Still a really bad idea!
RE: Fact #49 (Herodotus and the Temple of Love) – Yeah, that’s what we call Spring Break now.
RE: Fact #30 (Dabitum’s Plea from Babylon) – I’m really not having a good time lately, just thinking about how much human misery seems to keep happening over and over.
RE: Fact #1 (The 80 Aurochs of Mesopotamia) – Okay, so just to be super precise here: the original population of aurochs that humans started breeding to create today’s cattle would have actually been quite a bit larger than 80. It wasn’t like people just grabbed 80 aurochs and thought, “Yep, that’s enough for this whole process.”
The study factrepublic cites actually estimates around 80 common female ancestors from a domestication event that “may have lasted for millennia.” This number doesn’t even include male aurochs, or females who didn’t end up having any descendants alive today. Plus, those 80 are spread out over many, many generations.
Think about it like this: imagine Grog from ancient Mesopotamia captures a herd of 30 aurochs. But within that herd, there are only three main family lines. One is descended from Anne, the great-great-grandmother. Another is from Bessie, the great-grandmother. And there’s a small group from Clarabelle, who joined the herd recently. So, really, only three female lines are being domesticated. And Anne and Bessie were long gone before Grog even got hungry for beef.
Then, a terrible drought hits, and half the herd dies. Sadly, all of Anne’s descendants perish, so that line is wiped out. To fix things, Grog captures another herd of 30 aurochs, this time with two new female lines. He adds them to the second generation, along with all the cattle descended from Bessie and Clarabelle. But Clarabelle’s line also took a huge hit from the drought, and none of them make it into the third generation.
By this point, Grog has captured 60 aurochs in total. However, the surviving herd only traces back to three unique female ancestors: Bessie, Dorothy, and Emma. And like we said, Bessie died ages ago; Grog just ended up with a bunch of her great-grandkids.
Now, imagine this whole scenario playing out over the thousands of years it actually took to domesticate cattle – the article mentions up to 2,000 years. That’s way more than just 80 aurochs.
Don’t get me wrong, though – having only 80 unique female ancestors is still incredibly small. It really does suggest that cattle domestication was a pretty isolated event in history, which is fascinating! But it’s not just 80 aurochs involved.
RE: Fact #14 (Sumerian King List of Eternity) – It’s not really that surprising. The Bible also talks about people who supposedly lived for hundreds of years.
It’s interesting how the Bible shares similar stories with ancient Sumerian religion, and really, a lot of religions do. It seems like they’re all variations of those original Sumerian tales.
My relative in Texas takes the Bible super literally. They said people used to live for hundreds of years, but now we don’t because of ozone layer damage from humans. It’s a weird position for someone who’s usually socially conservative, because if that were true, you’d think they’d be really motivated to protect the environment.
RE: Fact #26 (The Progressive Code of Hammurabi) – I learned about the “eye for an eye” concept from Hammurabi’s code when I was in school.
RE: Fact #14 (Sumerian King List of Eternity) – There’s another poem found on a clay tablet from a school in Ur around 2000 BC is pretty wild. It describes a student getting caned for all sorts of things: not having something on their tablet, speaking without permission, getting up without permission, leaving without permission, taking beer without permission, speaking Akkadian, and even having a “no good” hand. Talk about a rough school day!
RE: Fact #50 (Saddam’s Attempt to Rebuild Babylon) – Calling it “restored” is a bit of a stretch. It was a poorly made and rushed replica that ended up damaging and disrespecting real archaeological sites. When I was stationed near Baghdad, I got to see some of these places during my downtime. From a distance, a lot of it looked pretty decent, but up close, you could see all the mistakes and flaws. I recall visiting one of his palaces and seeing that the chandeliers in the hallway weren’t hung straight, and all the fancy tile work was just crudely put together, uneven, and messy.
RE: Fact #49 (Herodotus and the Temple of Love) – You’d think it would turn into a total sausage fest with all those horny guys waiting for the next arrival…
It feels like being in an old-school internet chat room. “Anyone here a girl?! Hello?!”
This is starting to feel like a Monty Python sketch! Picture it: hundreds of guys just hanging out. Then someone yells, “WHO HERE’S A GIRL?!” And crickets.
I like guys, and I’ve got some pretty big moobs. Does that get me in? “Yeah, come on then.”
You know, it might have actually worked the other way around. Women had to stay at the temple until they were chosen. The younger and more attractive ones were picked up pretty quickly, but the rest had to wait there and hope someone would take them.
Ishtar and Inanna were goddesses of love, fertility, sex, and war. It seems like it was important to show that a woman wasn’t infertile. Since these goddesses were women, it was like they were celebrating womanhood, which is a pretty sweet idea when you consider it.
RE: Fact #17 (Sumer’s 4,000-Year-Old Fart Joke) – That’s super funny! But you know, the funniest Sumerian joke ever is still:
“A dog walked into a tavern and said, ‘I can’t see a thing. I’ll just open this.'”
Classic!
Is the joke just that it makes no sense?
It’s usually thought to be a joke about vaginas, but I think it’s more of a general crude joke.
The Sumerians, who lived in ancient Mesopotamia, used to drink wine and beer from giant vases or pots. Everyone would gather in a circle and drink through these massive straws. There are even old drawings showing this. They had invented a type of candle and some oil lamps, so rooms were usually dimly lit, not totally dark.
We can guess that the sound of people drinking through those ancient straws might have sounded wet and odd. Just imagine it!
Also, they built their cities with mud bricks and most places didn’t have many rooms. So, taverns were usually shown as just one big room.
So here’s the joke: A dog walks into a tavern. The oil lamps are covered because the prostitutes are working in the dark. The dog hears what he thinks is the sound of drinking. But since the dog doesn’t know any better, he says, “I can’t see. I’ll open this.” The funny part is the dog opens the lantern cover, letting light into the room, and then everyone can see each other doing embarrassing, funny sex stuff in the dark.
I’m looking forward to the paperback release of “1001 Sumerian Jokes.”
RE: Fact #37 (Cyrus Cylinder: The First Charter) – He’s a really interesting guy and definitely one of the leaders from the BCE that people in the West don’t talk about enough. Everyone back then respected him a lot, and that continued for centuries, even among Persia’s rivals. There’s an episode called “King of Kings” from Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History podcast that I think really nails how big of an impact he had.
RE: Fact #26 (The Progressive Code of Hammurabi) – I saw this thing in person at the Louvre! The “writing” on it is super tiny and packed in, and since it’s made of stone, it’s one of the few Babylonian artifacts that’s lasted this long. Really cool to check out.
I really wanted to see that thing at the Louvre the most. It’s just incredible to see it in person. The huge history behind that artifact is pretty awe-inspiring. And then you have hundreds of people packed in, shoving and fighting for space in a crowd of sweaty tourists with sticky elbows, all pushing you to get a quick peek at the Mona Lisa, which is just in the next room.
The Mona Lisa was the most disappointing thing I saw at the Louvre.
RE: Fact #42 (Enki and the Rivers of Life) – My backyard ants have similar myths.
RE: Fact #30 (Dabitum’s Plea from Babylon) – We know some pretty random stuff about the Bronze Age.
RE: Fact #16 (Sumer’s Oldest Chicken Pie) – I think I initially just wanted the recipe, but then it turned into a quest to check if Wikipedia was right about it. Wikipedia’s sources can be a bit iffy sometimes, but this one seems pretty solid.
RE: Fact #32 (Tapputi: The First Chemist) – I don’t have a link for this, but I recall reading somewhere that she was the first person to intentionally perform distillation.
That tablet mentioned in the wiki article was the first time someone wrote down distilling, but she definitely wasn’t the first one to actually do it.
RE: Fact #29 (Nippur Map) – This is super interesting. I recall hearing somewhere that top-down maps weren’t that common in ancient history because people just didn’t think that way. Like, a map was more likely to be a list of directions or descriptions rather than something we’d recognize, like this example. I’m not sure how accurate that is, though – it’s just a vague memory I have that I have no idea about the validity of. Obviously, it wasn’t a strict rule if that’s true, considering we’re looking at a map of an ancient city.
Yeah, generally speaking, people didn’t use maps like we do now. But this specific map probably wasn’t for getting around. It seems more like a tool for planning. Big, complicated public projects were being built back then, so having a pretty accurate layout of the land would have been super useful for figuring out where to build next. The ancient Greeks and Romans even took it further, planning out whole cities before they started building. So, your average traveler or merchant wouldn’t have needed a map like this, but they would have used ones more like what you were talking about.
Beyond just architectural plans and maps, like that cool one of Gudea with a temple on his lap, we’ve also got landscape and geological maps. For instance, there’s one from Nuzinow at Harvard showing mountains, a river, and towns, and another from Deir el-Medina that’s basically a mining map, now in Turin. Like you said, people didn’t usually use maps to get around back then – at least, we don’t have much evidence for it. They mostly relied on verbal directions, especially in cities. The Babylonian story about the physician from Isin gives a good example of this.
“Since you’ve healed me so well, may Enlil, the God of Nippur, bless you. If you ever visit my city of Nippur, I’ll give you a nice outfit, feed you delicious food, and offer you two jugs of strong beer.”
“But where in Nippur should I go?”
“When you reach Nippur, enter through the Great Gate. Keep Broad Street, Tillazida Street, and the streets of Nusku and Ninimma to your left. You’ll see a woman named Ninlugalabzu, daughter of Kianga-Enbilulu and daughter-in-law of Nišu-ana-Ea-takla. She’s the gardener for the Henun-Enlil orchard and will be selling produce on Tillazida Street. Just ask her, and she’ll guide you.”
RE: Fact #17 (Sumer’s 4,000-Year-Old Fart Joke) – It totally makes sense that the oldest recorded joke is a fart joke.
RE: Fact #42 (Enki and the Rivers of Life) – Wow, it’s pretty surprising how much ancient mythology actually talks about masturbation.
In Māori mythology, it’s said to be the source of earwax. The story goes that Tāne Mahuta, the god of the forest, entered Hineahuone, the maiden formed from earth, through various openings, leaving sticky divine residue in each until he reached her vagina.
Someone had to figure it out! Big thanks to ol TM for figuring out which hole to use.
RE: Fact #3 (Eridu: Sumer’s First City) – It’s kind of tricky to connect the idea of the Fertile Crescent with the dry, barren landscapes we often see in media from Iraq. I’m curious if climate change has played a big part in this, along with soil salinization from past agricultural practices that weren’t well-irrigated.
It seems like media sometimes focuses on certain aspects, which can really shape how we see things. For example, there’s still a lot of farming happening in the fertile crescent, especially in Iraq. You can actually see it pretty well on Google Earth. But if most of what you see about Iraq in the news is about tough, dusty streets with people carrying AKs, it’s easy for your idea of the place to get a little warped.
RE: Fact #5 (Hul Gil: The Sumerian Joy Plant) – We still do stuff like using opium, drinking beer, and writing angry complaints. Not a whole lot has changed since Sumerian times, really.
RE: Fact #6 (Babylon’s Base-60 Legacy) – Also, 60 x 60 is pretty close to the number of days in a year, and 360 is a super handy number that divides evenly by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 18, and 20.
RE: Fact #31 (Babylon’s 3,500-Year-Old ‘Your Mom’ Joke) – Your mom is such a ho, people will still be talking about her sex life in 3,500 years.
RE: Fact #21 (Babylon’s Tablet of Root 2) – This is so cool! I’m actually taking a Numerical Analysis class right now and we’re doing similar stuff. It’s wild to think people were doing the same kind of math, like, 4000 years ago, especially since they weren’t even using our number system.
RE: Fact #16 (Sumer’s Oldest Chicken Pie) – Makes me think, maybe Nanni whipped up a batch of this for himself to feel better after Ea-nāṣir messed up his copper order.
RE: Fact #18 (Enlil-Bani: The Gardener King) – The substitute king ritual in Mesopotamia is pretty wild. It wasn’t just during an eclipse; the stand-in king could be on the throne for up to 100 days until the bad omen was considered gone. Which eclipses actually triggered this depended on the eclipse’s path and which part of the moon was covered, as it could signify death for a ruler from one of four different regions.
The whole ritual was super involved. The real king would chill in a house outside the city, praying and cleansing himself to ward off the omen. During this time, letters to the king wouldn’t have their usual “To the king, my lord…” greeting. Instead, they’d address him as “the farmer,” and there are plenty of letters that actually call him that. The king was still in charge and ruling, but they made a big effort to trick the gods into thinking he wasn’t actually king then.
The substitute king was usually a slave or prisoner, dressed in the real king’s stuff and forced to say prayers. The king’s scholars would also do rituals for the substitute, probably reciting the specific bad omens from the eclipse. There’s a letter from the Neo-Assyrian period where a scholar mentions, “The substitute king of the land of Akkad took the signs on himself.” The ritual ended with the execution of the substitute king.
It’s important to remember that in Mesopotamia, fate wasn’t set in stone. Omens were seen as the gods showing their annoyance with the king, but it didn’t mean the omen was guaranteed to happen. The god’s displeasure would only continue if the king didn’t change his ways. All omens could be canceled by a specific ritual, and through other divinations, scholars could figure out what the king did wrong that brought on the omen, so they could make sure it wouldn’t happen again.
Seriously though, what did they believe about their gods’ power and effectiveness if they could be fooled so easily? It’s like they were thinking, “Sure, we can pay our dues, but the gods haven’t realized that old Mesh-ki-ang-gasher is just chilling with goats while a potter is actually in charge.” Okay, maybe that’s not the best example. My random pick did disappear at sea, but you get the idea.
The Assyrians and Babylonians probably didn’t see these rituals as tricking the gods, even if it looks that way to us. They likely genuinely believed the rituals on the substitute king moved the bad omens onto him. My guess is they used the name “farmer” just to make sure the gods knew exactly who the bad luck was being transferred to. Plenty of Mesopotamian rituals involved moving bad stuff from one person to another. For example, the “Burning” series, Maqlu, was used to fight witchcraft. They’d make little figures and say rituals to transfer the evil magic to the figure, and in turn, send it back to the witch.
Plus, Mesopotamian gods are often shown as pretty human and flawed. There’s a Sumerian story where the goddess Inanna gets Enki drunk and steals all the “me”s, which were basically the gods’ powers. In one flood story, Atrahasis, the god Enlil gets sick of humans making noise and decides to wipe them out. But the god Ea keeps messing up his plans, so Enlil finally sends a flood. What happens after is pretty telling. When the floodwaters recede, Atrahasis leaves food offerings for the gods. The text says the gods swarmed the food like flies, realizing they had no one to feed them regularly without humans. The other gods then scold Enlil for being so dumb and making the flood, and promise not to do it again.
I think that part of Atrahasis highlights a big aspect of Mesopotamian religion. Their gods were seen as physical, present beings. Through a ritual called “mis pi,” or “opening of the mouth,” they believed they could transfer a god’s spirit into a statue kept in the temple. It seems to me that most ancient people felt their relationship with their gods was a two-way street. They’d feed, clothe, bathe, and generally look after the gods, and in return, the gods would protect them and keep society running smoothly.
RE: Fact #45 (The Myth of the Hanging Gardens) – If something truly didn’t exist, it would be a perfect symbol for human imagination being one of the 7 Wonders of the World. Our ability to create imaginary stories and places is truly one of the most amazing things on Earth.