Posted on 01/31/2023 4:45:53 PM PST by SunkenCiv
I haven’t watched the Passenger Pigeons/Whiskey vid yet, and it’s not really related (although PP’s were birds), I just didn’t want to lose track of it or forget about it.
Why does the Chicken cross the Road? Because she must.
The Chicken represents Life.
The Road represents Time and Age.
The edges of the Road are really two boundaries of the same plane, as it wrap around the world, forming the Great Unknown.
The Chicken MUST cross the Road, advancing in Age, as she goes.
Roads have a crown, so the first half of her journey is uphill.
When she reaches the dividing line in the center, she has reached middle age; it’s all downhill from there.
She comes from The Great Unknown, crosses, and so returns to The Great Unknown.
Thus, the answer is, because it is an existential imperative.
An added problem is that most of the extant manuscripts date to the Old Babylonian period (c. 18th century BCE), when Sumerian had already died out as a spoken language. In fact, these proverbs were used in the education of scribes to teach them Sumerian, so there is a good chance that some of the punchlines were already 'lost in translation' by the time these manuscripts were written.
Seems like the only thing he could "see" to open would be an eye, or the tavern. Perhaps "dog" was idiomatic for a bar owner, and the proprietor/bartender never sees a thing that's going on in the tavern (or he wouldn't have been in business for long).
I didn't see that one suggested.
“A dog walked into a tavern and said, ‘I can’t see a thing. I’ll open this one’.”
Outstanding!
Or, it could just be absurdity built on misdirection, like, “what’s got four legs, is green, and would kill you if it fell out of a tree on top of you?” “I give up.” “A pool table.”
0:52 — ‘A dog walked into a tavern and said: “I can’t see a thing. I’ll open this one!”’
The Sumerian Dog Joke That Makes No Sense
23:22
The Histocrat
476K subscribers
232,278 views
September 24, 2023
Hey folks, here’s a quick side video examining the meaning of an old archaeology meme that did the rounds last year! Its deliberately very different from my normal style so I hope you enjoy! Next video will be a normal documentary style episode or a podcast! References/corrections are in the pinned comment below!
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