Q: So, apparently there’s an ancient riddle that Iraq’s famous for, but it’s written in hieroglyphics? What’s up with THAT?
A: Kind of. In ancient Mesopotamia, now Iraq, writing was done in cuneiform script, a pictographic language that has similarities to hieroglyphics. If you’d look at the riddle now, you’d just see what looked like a bunch of blocks and lines… but, translated, it’s pretty basic:
“What is a house that one enters blind, but one leaves it seeing?”
The answer to the riddle is at the end of this. But first, a little more background. The riddle comes from the ancient city of Ur, where students trained as scribes. Ur is now called Tell al-Mukayyar, around 10 miles from Nasariyah in southern Iraq. Ur was an important city in ancient Sumer (i.e., the Sumerians) and is famous for its ziggurat, which is still largely standing now. The ziggurat is a temple dedicated to the moon god in Sumerian mythology, and was built around 2000 B.C.
The Sumerians are most noted for “inventing” law as a written and administered system.
Now, the answer to the riddle? A school.
Got a question about goings-on in Mideast? E-mail: news@estripes.osd.mil