Sunday, March 04, 2007

Watch out for them dogs

In the category of "this must be shared with the blogosphere":

I'm doing some reading on the origins of physiognomy, the practice of interpreting people's faces to understand their character. (You know how it goes - a strong jaw indicates courage, little beady eyes mean you're greedy, and so forth.) Apparently there are physiognomical treatises in Hebrew, Sanskrit, and Chinese traditions going back thousands of years... but the oldest evidence comes from cuneiform tablets in ancient Mesopotamia, which include the following gem:

"If a man with a contorted face has a prominent right eye, far from his home dogs will eat him."

Dang, that's pretty specific.

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