The earliest example of a bar joke is Sumerian, on a tablet dating from the early Old Babylonian Empire (c. 1894-1800 BC), and it features a dog: "A dog, having walked into an inn, did not see anything, (and so he said): 'Shall I open this (door)?'." The humor of it is probably related to the Sumer way of life and has been lost, but the words remain.
i cry myself to sleep every night thinking about the Sumerian tavern joke and the Sumer way of life. Oh to be a dog born in Mesopotamia between 3500 and 3000 B.C.E
by Richard Haass March 15, 2022