Sumerian flatulence proverb
About the work
Imported from the workbook's Full reassessment sheet, revised 7 October 2026 (record ID 1). The assessment below is the workbook's comparative judgment under its stated criteria; source links and limits are retained.
Workbook assessment: Spread only
Date or witness: Old Babylonian witnesses, approximately 1900–1600 BCE; often popularized as c.1900 BCE
Region: Mesopotamia (modern Iraq)
Workbook date-sort bounds: 1900 BCE to 1600 BCE; these bounds are not automatically invention or disappearance dates.
Description
A proverb jokes about the supposedly unprecedented event of a young wife not passing gas in her husband's embrace. ETCSL Proverbs 1.12.
Evidence of adoption or transmission
A proverb preserved in the Old Babylonian scribal corpus.
What remains uncertain
Scribal preservation does not establish independent popular uptake or workers as its audience.
Workbook revision note: Reassessed using grassroots criteria
Related image: this is Ashmolean 1922.157, a separate Old Babylonian collection of Sumerian proverbs associated with ETCSL 6.1.25; it is not a witness of ETCSL Proverbs 1.12. Photograph by Zunkir, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Delivery derivatives use the same license.
