B Thoreau 🛸

Just so you know about my intensely scholarly efforts this evening: I wondered what the earliest known smiley face in the world is.

It is found on a 3, 700 year Hittite pot found in Turkey, with the classic two dots and curved line.

You are welcome! 🙂

Apr 5 at 12:20amWeb
Show threadB Thoreau 🛸4h ago

Okay, lets go further down the Smiley Face Rabbit Hole.

So check this mediavel bad boy out, found in a 13th century text, drawn by the reader. Check out his glasses and is that a mustache? Thank Historian Erik Kwakkel for finding it.

Show threadB Thoreau 🛸4h ago
In 1635, in a village nearby Slovakia’s Strazov Mountains, lawyer Jan Ladislaides marked his stamp of approval on municipal account documents with a small blotched drawing of two dots and a line inside a circle. The first bureaucratic abuse of a Smiley Face or was the guy just trying to have fun at work?
Show threadB Thoreau 🛸4h ago

Lastly, and this will be totally controversial: A Classic Sideways Smiley Emoji was found in a 1648 printed poem, To Fortune, by Robert Herrick.

I mean, the modern brain goes straight there. But most people think it is a typographical error. Did they use colons back then?

Show threadRebecca1d ago
@Thoreau ancestor of the kool aid man???
Show threadB Thoreau 🛸1d ago

@chumblyface I thought the answer might be something like the 1960's, which just shows you how much I know about the history of smiley faces. ***literally nothing***

So yeah, apparently The Smiley Face has ancestral DNA. Who knew?

Show thread"Mediocre Bunny" Evelyn1d ago
@Thoreau
:)
Show threadRichard K 1d ago
@Thoreau Harvey Ball is buried quite close to me.
https://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/58637
Show threadB Thoreau 🛸1d ago
@RichSPK Good history find!
Show threadutility himbo19h ago
@checkervest, you might like this 👆
Show threadJayflo16h ago
@Thoreau Well worth the effort, it made me smile!
Show threadThe Mane Six (Octo Version)14h ago
@Thoreau The smiley face basically having a shard to itself is so wonderful.
Show threadDef.X:  & 14h ago
@Thoreau Hittites be like: :)
Show threadfoundseed13h ago
@Thoreau @casy
Show threadcc / 西西13h ago
@foundseed oh my my :)
Show thread☮️ & 🍺 on 🌏13h ago

@Thoreau :)

:D even

Show threadJames Wallbank9h ago

@Thoreau I like it! But I wonder if this counts?

The Makapansgat Cobble is a manuport—not a tool, nor engineered, but deliberately carried to where it was found, suggesting that the carrier recognised the face. It's a bit older—from about 3,000,000 years ago!

Show threadB Thoreau 🛸9h ago
@lowtech hmm. It might be a face, but is it a smiley face?
Show threadJames Wallbank8h ago
@Thoreau Back in those days, maybe smiling wasn't a thing! (Australopithecines, in common with their ancestors, probably interpreted smiling as a threat.)
Show threadB Thoreau 🛸8h ago
@lowtech I think it looks more like an Oh No Face. Which would make so much sense given its age! 😯
Show threadJames Wallbank8h ago
@Thoreau There's another face on the other side, too!
Show threadLuna Lactea5h ago
@Thoreau It's too perfect. Its neatness strongly implies that the artist had plenty of practice. Somewhere there must be a far older grandsmiley.
Show threadB Thoreau 🛸5h ago
@jackemled Smiley faces feel modern, don't they? They became a big thing in the 70's and then we made emojis out of them, so they are still everywhere. The Hittite Smiley Face gives a modern person some kind of uncanny valley feeling, but like a modern uncanny feeling. How can somebody so long ago emote the same way we do?
Show threadLuna Lactea5h ago
@Thoreau The smiley face transcends time.
Show threadJectoons  1h ago
@Thoreau oooh unbeknownst to you this helps me. Thank you.