ISTANBUL — German archaeologists in southern Turkey have made a groundbreaking discovery: they have uncovered evidence of the world’s first asshole.
Katja Schultheiss, the archaeologist who leads the team, says the asshole was a Hittite soldier who lived around four thousand years ago. He grew tired of his peaceful agrarian community so he started to swagger around, womanize, pick on weak people and generally do things just to piss everyone off.
“The artifacts suggest this guy was a real Arschloch,” Schultheiss says. “A grade-A asshole, the first in the whole world.”
The team has been excavating the site since 2008, when a pistachio farmer uncovered a cuneiform-inscribed clay tablet. The farmer gave the tablet to scholars at Gaziantep University who dated the tablet to around the year 2000 B.C. As it turns out, the artifact is a list of women the asshole slept with, and there are close to 100 entries.
“He didn’t even know their names,” Schultheiss said. “Or if he did, he didn’t think they were important. Instead, he gave them degrading nicknames like ‘dopey wife of the blind shepherd,’ ‘the one who needed a bath,’ or ‘the farter.’ He also rated their love-making between one and 60 — 60 being the base of the Mesopotamian counting system.
“None of the women scored above five,” Schultheiss said. “What an asshole.”
The discovery of the tablet prompted the excavation, which has yielded invaluable artifacts, many of which seem to have either belonged to the asshole, or were objects of worship made by asshole’s cult of followers that existed for at least 1000 years after his death.
Among the asshole’s items are bronze chariot rims, a pot to store animal fat used as hair grease, and several adorned rods that scholars believe were used to swat the butts of female slaves.
Recently, Schultheiss and her team have unearthed a tomb they believe contains the asshole’s remains. The site is littered with bronze-age beer cans, misogynist limericks written on tablet fragments, and a rude caricature of a crippled slave boy.
“These items might have belonged to the asshole himself, or to his followers who gathered once a year to honor him by getting drunk, making up vile lies about local virgins, and having belching contests.”