The Oldest Known Joke Is 3,900 Years Old

In ancient Sumer, around 1900 BCE, a scribe etched what is now considered the world's oldest known joke onto a clay tablet. This piece of humor, more of a proverb than a traditional joke, has survived for millennia. The line, translated from cuneiform, reads: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap." This ancient wisecrack reveals that humor centered on bodily functions is not a modern phenomenon but has been a part of human culture for at least 3,900 years, connecting our modern sensibilities with those of one of the world's first civilizations.

The Sumerians, who lived in what is now southern Iraq, developed one of the earliest known writing systems, which they used for everything from administrative records to literature. The survival of this joke offers a unique glimpse into their social norms and everyday life. It suggests a commentary on the difference in behavior between the early stages of a relationship and the familiarity of marriage. While this particular joke is easily understood today, other ancient jokes can be more cryptic. For instance, the oldest known bar joke, also Sumerian, about a dog walking into an inn, is baffling to modern scholars, indicating that the context for some ancient humor has been lost to time.

The study of what makes us laugh has a long history, with the very word "humor" deriving from the ancient Greeks' medical concept of the four bodily "humours" that were thought to control health and emotion. While the Sumerian fart joke is the oldest recorded example with a clear setup and punchline structure, other forms of ancient humor have been found. For example, a joke from an ancient Egyptian papyrus dating to around 1600 BCE pokes fun at a pharaoh. These fragments of ancient wit demonstrate that for as long as humans have had language, they have used it to entertain, poke fun, and find amusement in the shared human experience.