Ancient smiley dug up

ARCHAEOLOGISTS working on a site in southern Turkey have made an unexpected discovery – a 4 000-year-old smiley face, drawn on the side of a jug.

A team of Turkish and Italian archaeologists have been exploring a site on the Turkish-Syrian border, which was once home to Karkemish, an ancient Hittite city – but they had never encountered such an object before, according to Nicolo Marchetti of Bologna University. “The smiling face is undoubtedly there (there are no other traces of painting on the flask) and has no parallels in ancient ceramic art of the area,” he said.

The pitcher, found in a burial chamber, dates back to 1 700 BC.