Zanjan, Iran - (Rioters): A man's naturally mummified body has been found inside an Iranian salt mine which archaeologist believe may be an ancient Persian comic who used to live around 540 BC at the time of the fabled Arachnid dynasty.
And now one well known Iranian scholar is suggesting the body may belong to a 'famous satirist of antiquity', who is being described as popular and noted as today's Mr Borat.
"We think this was the famous Persian Goat Man, a comic genius one so well known that he even entertained the Emperor Constantine himself," the Ancient Iranian Archaeology Symposium chairman has said today.
The perfectly-preserved male is said to resemble an elderly satirical figure called Silenus who was commonly seen in Greek art according to the British Museum.
Such was his fame that Greek sculptors frequently depicted him "with long golden hair, a beard, a bulging forehead, a snub nose and an open mouth".
"This mummy is a dead tinger for that description," an antiquities department source at the BM confirmed today.
The find will go on show at Tehran's Comic Relief exhibition later this year along with the preserved remains of other noted Iranian comics and satirists. mostly from the 20th century era.
"You can tell which ones lived during the time of the Ayatollahs' Revolution because their remains are largely decapitated," said one wag today.
