Some jokes are like a fine wine and age well with time; others get rather lost in translation as the centuries pass. One joke, etched in the ancient cuneiform writing of the Sumerian people, stands as the oldest recorded bar joke and dates back roughly 4,000 years.
It reads: “A dog walks in a bar and says, ‘I cannot see a thing. I’ll open this one.” Surely, this joke was hilarious in its time, but today, this nonsensical one-liner has sparked much debate and theories about why exactly it tickled ancient peoples so.
This particular joke became an internet sensation a couple of years ago, inspiring numerous memes, gifs, and in-depth analytical commentary; what all good jokes need. But it is not the oldest known joke by any means, as researchers have uncovered numerous scrawls from the past that prove when ancient people began writing, they not only used the novel technique for serious business but also to crack wise.
Searching for the Oldest Known Jokes
In 2008, researchers at the University of Wolverhampton delved into this question to uncover the oldest jokes known. Another – considered as the world’s oldest – is a proverb that again comes from Sumeria.
The ancient Sumerians lived in southern Mesopotamia — modern-day Iraq — for thousands of years between 5000 and around 1750 B.C.E. They created thriving civilizations, crafted beautiful works of art, built monumental structures, and much more. But clearly, dirty humor was not above them. In this case, it’s a fart joke that translates and summarizes – roughly – as a young woman who did not fart on her husband.
Other ancient jokes uncovered by the researchers include writing on an ancient Egyptian papyrus featuring a dig at one King Snorfu and dates to around 1600 B.C.E.
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The Role of Humor in Ancient Politics and Society
Passing through time, humor and jokes also ebbed into more serious realms such as politics and religion. Well known for their ancient tragedies, the Ancient Greeks developed a healthy practice of satire, riffing about public affairs and officials of their time, often in a rowdy fashion.
In the Roman world, the famous consul and statesman Cicero even wrote a book dedicated to humor as part of a wider work of writing focused on how one becomes an ideal orator or public speaker. In it, he elaborates on how jokes can be a political weapon, a practice many politicians in today’s world try, and often fail, to put into practice.
Though not ancient, it is believed that a text known as the Philogelos, or “laughter lover,” is a compendium of ancient jokes from across the Mediterranean, collected over many years. It’s thought to date to the 4th or 5th century C.E. and is considered the oldest joke book in the world.
Written in Greek, it contains over 250 jokes covering all manner of themes. One such example tells the story of a rude astrologer. He promises a mother that her child will live a long life and asks for payment. She tells him to come back tomorrow, but the astrologer retorts: “But what if the boy dies during the night and I lose my fee?”
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Jokes May Have Evolved With Our Ancestors
When exactly our species first began to joke and tease one another can’t be pinpointed exactly. Ancient Sumer’s examples tell us that this practice was likely commonplace thousands of years ago. However, tracing this further back to pre-history is inherently complicated.
Some researchers studying our ancestors – the apes – have, however, found clues that suggest joking around is a fundamental part of who we are. A study published earlier this year found that four species of great apes engage in “playful teasing” from a young age. This, the researchers believe, could be a precursor to joking in our own species.
“From an evolutionary perspective, the presence of playful teasing in all four great apes and its similarities to playful teasing and joking in human infants suggests that playful teasing and its cognitive prerequisites may have been present in our last common ancestor, at least 13 million years ago,” Isabelle Laumer, a post-doctoral researcher and biologist at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour, said in a statement.
That suggests an incredibly long journey from our early ancestors teasing one another to the moment when an ancient Sumerian decided to etch down the first written joke about farts and millions of years of humor that has simply been lost to time.
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Sean Mowbray is a freelance writer based in Scotland. He covers the environment, archaeology, and general science topics. His work has also appeared in outlets such as Mongabay, New Scientist, Hakai Magazine, Ancient History Magazine, and others.
