This might be the strangest question I've asked here...

[Archae]

Exactly who or what is "Humpty Dumpty?"

The original poem doesn't say.

Saw a couple theories, one says it was a cannon.

Another says he was Richard III.

[Siwsan]

1. I've heard the Richard III connection but no wall was involved in his demise

Just a righteous Welshman, Sir Rhys ap Thomas, wielding some sort of cudgel. So, perhaps it refers to his "Egg" (cranium) being cracked.

[Uben]

2. looks like an egg to me!

FWIW

[cyclonefence]

3. Wikipedia suggests

the rhyme might have originated as a riddle, i.e., what is it that when falling off a wall could not be made as it was before, no matter how many people tried? An egg!!!

That makes a lot of sense to me. In early versions, the line wasn't "put together again" but "put back (where he was) again" which would certainly apply to an egg, too.

[Clash City Rocker]

4. Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass described him as looking like an egg

Not as an egg per se, but that may be what cemented the character as an egg in popular culture.

[lillypaddle]

5. An egg, silly!