Ancient Mesopotamians enjoyed riddles about sex, beer and politics

A newly translated tablet from the area of present-day Iraq reveals a series of riddles, which show that even in 1,500 BC, people liked a puzzle.

It revealed that, crude jokes, beer, sex and a hearty disregard for politicians were part of life in ancient Mesopotamia - 3,500 years ago.

The tablet dates to the time of the Biblical Exodus, and is thought to have been written near the Persian Gulf. It was written in cuneiform script.

The text has large parts missing, and also appears to have been carved by an inexperienced scribe, the Daily Mail reported.

The text was translated by Michael Streck of the University of Leipzig and Nathan Wasserman of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The authors suspect that the scribe might have lived near the Persian Gulf.

The finding is significant the tablet itself might well be lost as the museum the tablet was housed in was pillaged during the 2003 invasion.

The tablet was transcribed and published in 1976 by JJ Van Dijk. The researchers used his transcript for their translation.

The location of the tablet is currently unknown - although the researchers say that it is small and does not look valuable, so they have not given up hope that looters might simply have ignored it.

“We tried to figure out where the tablet is now. But I don’t know. I very much hope that it is still there,” Wasserman told LiveScience.