 At the time the tablet was written, more than 3,500 years ago, Babylon (shown here as seen in 1932) Babylon was one of the most important cities in southern Mesopotamia, controlling an empire in the region. The translation, by Nathan Wasserman, a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Institute of Archaeology, and Michael Streck, a professor with the Altorientalisches Institut at Universität Leipzig, is detailed in the most recent edition of the journal Iraq. In 1976, it was housed in the Iraq Museum in Baghdad. At that time, a scholar named J.J. van Dijk published a copy of the Akkadian inscription, which the researchers used for their translation. If this isn't a precursor to the greatest take-down since McCarthy's "You know how I know you're a communist?" Next up, a cutting bit of political humor: 
 
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 He gouged out the eye. He cut the throat: A dead man (-Who is it?) [No answer] 
 
 "Your mother"? This is apparently a reference to a Bayblonian governor's power to sentence people to death, according to Streck and W. In the comedy world, "speaking truth to power" commentary is often more direct than clever (see Louis CK's tweets about Sarah Palin), so...perhaps this is the Babylonian equivalent of a "Politically Incorrect" intro? "We have some interesting traces of political criticism, and [I] might say even say political anger," he said. Take this one for example: 
 
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 In your mouth and your teeth, constantly stared at you, the measuring vessel of your lord. The answer, it appears, is beer. One of them, whose translation is uncertain, reads: 
 
 The deflowered (girl) did not become pregnant 
 
 The undeflowered (girl) became pregnant (-What is it?) The answer, strangely enough, appears to be "auxiliary forces," a group of soldiers that tend not to be reliable. Here it is...or what's left of it, anyway: 
 
 ...of your mother is by the one who has intercourse with her. [No answer] 
 
 Yes, tragically, this no doubt devastating takedown of somebody's mother's sexual proclivities has been lost to history. Though they call the tablet an example of "wisdom literature," meaning these the riddles were metaphors meant to impart pithy little truths.
– At 3,500 years old, researchers may have deciphered the world's most ancient "yo mama" joke. Using images of a tablet discovered in 1976 but since lost, the pair dissected a series of jokes carved by a Babylonian student thousands of years ago, and their conclusions, originally published in the journal Iraq, have been getting some attention. The tablet contains six riddles that the researchers call "wisdom literature," but the Huffington Post notes that the aphorisms aren't too different from today's frat party jokes. One refers to alcohol: "In your mouth and your teeth, constantly stared at you, the measuring vessel of your lord. -What is it? Beer." And while it may not be that funny to you, the researchers note that "your teeth" could also be interpreted as "your urine." The aforementioned "yo mama" joke is, unfortunately, a piecemeal translation: "...of your mother is by the one who has intercourse with her. What/who is it? [No answer]." Writing for io9, Alasdair Wilkins notes, with appreciation, the researchers' decision to leave "it ambiguous whether the word is 'who' or 'what' the mother is having sex with—even in ancient Babylon, you just can't rule anything out when talking about one's mother."