Podcasts Technology Endless Thread Best of Summer: What makes the worlds first bar joke funny? No one knows.

Best of Summer: What makes the worlds first bar joke funny? No one knows.

Published: July 14, 2023, 5 a.m.

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What makes the world\\u2019s first documented bar joke funny? No one knows.

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In a tweet that garnered thousands of responses in March, the Twitter account @DepthsOfWiki posted about a 4,000-year-old proverb written on a clay tablet. The line, which experts believe is a joke from the ancient civilization of Sumer, starts with the set-up, \\u201cA dog walks into a tavern.\\u201d But the punchline has left scholars and online commenters scratching their heads. The joke\\u2019s meaning has been lost, and finding it could reveal something unique about early human civilization.

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In this episode, the first of two parts, Endless Thread journeys back in time, attempting to deconstruct the origins of humor and explain an unexplainable joke from the forgotten tablets of the past.

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