Antiquity of jokes

Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BCE. A fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke^[1]

A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different Stereotypes, the Absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who you are:

a barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me.

Another joke goes: "A man tells a well-known wit: "I had your wife, without paying a penny". The husband replies: "It's my duty as a husband to couple with such a monstrosity. What made you do it?"

There is even a version of Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[2]