OP, so your post is not removed, please reply to this comment with your best guess of what this meme means! Everyone else, this is PETER explains the joke. Have fun and reply as your favorite fictional character for top level responses!
IIRC - This one in particular is noted for being basically incomprehensible since it was found written in isolation among relics of the long dead. There's no cultural reference we know of to bring the humor forward into newer phrasing, so it's a kind of touchstone for seeing how so much of what we say and do today is linked to social norms and customs which don't often get written down anywhere.
Correct. It’s used as an example of both the oldest known “walks into a bar” joke, and also a joke that no one understands because it relies on either a pun or cultural reference that we don’t have the context for and probably never will.
Like imagine future archeologists trying to decipher a joke that says “A man enters a drinking establishment and cries out in pain.”
The version I heard was “A man walks into a bar. A couple of minutes later, another man walks into a bar. The first man says “Don’t feel too bad, I didn’t see it, either.”
I hope third exact thing survives so far into the future that all cultural connotation is lost to the point that they genuinely cannot decipher the difference. That would be damn funny.
Isn’t it also the oldest written joke known? Maybe I’m misremembering, but I could have sworn I’d seen that somewhere, especially since I’ve heard this joke exactly one other time in my life.
But what do male paternal units have to do with this joke? Were they the only creators of humor? No mentions of female paternal unit creating humor, nor non paternal units creating humor? Astounding!
Modern scientists should make a tablet like that, where they explain in detail why the "man walks into a bar" joke was funny. Im not kidding, they should get on it
The joke is known but the internet likes to pretend it isn't for effect.
Basically, the words for "can't see" were the same/sounded the same as "eyes closed" in Sumerian.
So the joke is the dog cant see (your meant to think its due to it being dark in the tavern, when its actually because his eyes are closed), so he opens an eye.
Imagine 2000 years from now someone finding a wood block someone carved this version of Loss into as a joke and trying to figure out what the fuck that symbol means. That’s where we are with this joke.
We have no cultural context for the joke, right now I could write down “My dog and I went to the bar last night.” And 2000 years from now they won’t know I didn’t mean my Pomeranian, I mean Brian, a guy I’ve know since grade school. Not to mention a medium understanding of the language as a whole, the word we generally translate to “dog” could have 25 different meanings that we just don’t know.
It’s believed by some archaeolinguists that the dog might have its eyes closed, or is in a dark bar opening a window, or is opening a container of alcohol.
Or that it is the absurdity of the dog is blind and somehow opening something, what could it possibly be opening?
But for all we know they could have the same symbol for open that they use for all three actions, and that could be the joke.
(Anyone not sure what I mean the seasoning rack that holds salt and pepper on tables or in restaurants used to always come for 3 seasonings not just salt and pepper and it’s not documented what was in it so it’s lost to time for a similar reason unless it’s been unearthed since I last read of it)
Since it became a popular Internet mystery people have done better research on more first-hand sources and the conclusion is that mustard was very often considered a trio with salt and pepper in the context of cruets.
Could there be some linguistic homonyms we are unaware of? The most simple one would be for example "this one" being a window, and somehow relating to something what dogs do?
i'm reciting this from memory, and im pretty dumb, so take it with a grain of salt:
The Sumerians lived 4000 to 2000 b.c.e.
This "proverb" was found on some pottery(?) i believe. For us this is gibberish.
It seems like for an ancient Sumerian this was hillarious enough to scribe it onto some pottery.
Its an example of of the society in which you live, the language you speak and so on form your way of thinking.
To turn around the perspective: A modern, pop-cultural joke would totally go over the head of an ancient sumerian, even if you could translate it perfectly.
My best guess is that the wording might've had a double meaning in it's native language along with the dog wrongfully opening the door to the bar thinking it was the destination it was meant to go to.
That of they were making fun of someone for sure. Lol
"a jar" means, well, round glass container, "słoik" in Polish, and if it's big, it can be called "słój"
for something wide-open, we have in Polish a phrase, "stać otworem", which literally translates as "stand an orifice" - constructed just like "stand a possibility/chance". Sth is wide open = Coś stoi otworem ~~ Sth stands an orifice
so you can say "the door is wide open" = "drzwi stoją otworem", that's perfectly normal phrase
but I wrote "drzwi słoją otworem"
I replaced "T" with "Ł". This made "stoją" sound like "słoj+ą". For a native listener, it's a clear reference to "słój" (big jar), but the word is flexed to sound like a verb in a continuous form (so, kinda "jar-ing").
why it's so bad?
The phrase "stoją otworem" is so specific and coined, that, when "słoją otworem" is written, probably noone would read it correctly, everyone would miss the Ł and would read T, and joke is gone.
When spoken, the 'verb' in utterance "słoją otworem" is not even very similar to "stoją otworem". It's like "stood" and "swoon". The listener will first take "słoją" as "złoją" (*) (to beat sb up), and when they hear following "otworem", they'll most likely only be confused (door? beat someone up? orifice/opening?). To get the joke, they'll have to notice door+otworem, think of missing "stoją" word and then notice stoją<>słoją, and ONLY then they can make note of the T<>Ł single letter change..!<
and then, finally, to get the joke, you need to know the english version, and notice JAR~SŁOJ literal translation..
(*) in PL, "złoją" can be pronounced as "z-łoją", but almost always it's pronounced as "s-łoją" because of some phonetic effects and lazy and/or hasty speech, it takes noticeable effort to say 'z' as true 'z' sound in this word
I remember another theory, that it might be a sex joke: back then, bars/taverns/brothels were supposedly the same establishment, so it could be read as "the dog walks into a brothel and says 'I can't see anything, I'll open that one". And the humor may come from the double meaning (does the dog want to "open" a beer or something, or does it want to "open" a woman from a brothel?), or from another sexual double-entendre.
Keep in mind, it's only one of multiple theories. But we know that on this subreddit the joke is always porn, so... I had to mention it.
One of the speculations is that it's a reference to people getting frisky, in side rooms, but we don't have a ton of evidence beyond just a couple bits here and there where some people would ply their trade on the side at local gathering holes
It’s the oldest joke “Walks into a bar” theme but because direct translation for Sumerian language to English doesn’t work well it has ruined the joke.
Maybe the fact that it's on pottery means something. Perhaps food and wine are stored in clay jars, and a big clay jar was also being used as a shit/piss pot. Now the dog can't read (can't see a thing) and even though the piss pot is marked in other ways that people of the time would recognize, the dog couldn't read and snatched the lid off the jar looking for a snack/drink. So the joke was a cutesy thing to put on a chamber pot in a fun little old Airbnb. Just an idea.
It must be the dog is asking for a bud light. My dad would use the same joke when asking me to go get a beer from the fridge for him (specifically he'd say, "it's a little dark in here" *fingers make a graba beer motion). I always knew his jokes were really old. (/s for it being the actual explanation btw)
My guess is its bright and the dog has been working all day in the sun. Dog went into a dark bar and decided who cares whats in this jar my eyes haven't adjusted yet i just need booze right now and could care less what I'm drinking. appears to me to be a standard blue collar joke similar to the modern ones about working to much and getting drunk. we just have lights in our bars but otherwise same rules.
A pony goes to the doctor and says “I’m a little hoarse.” Is a funny dad joke in English, but a non-native speaker won’t get it. It’s that, but to an even greater extenet
The meaning behind the proverb is also subject to debate among scholars. Gordon suggested that the inn also apparently served as a brothel (he notes that the word used in the proverb for inn or tavern, "éš-dam", can also be translated as "brothel", and it was common in ancient Mesopotamia for prostitution to take place in these establishments[3]), and thus "the dog wanted to see what was 'going on behind closed doors'".[4] Nett suggests that the punchline could be a pun that is incomprehensible to modern readers, or a reference to some figure who was well known at the time but similarly unfamiliar to modern readers. Gonzalo Rubio, another Assyriologist, cautions that this ambiguity ultimately means it is simply not possible to definitely categorize the proverb as a joke, though he and other scholars like Nett do point to the recurring use of innuendo in such proverbs as indicating that many were indeed intended to be humorous.[3]
Maybe it's like what happens every day in kitchens- a dumb ass walks into the cooler- doesn't see the open in use container and opens another one... idk
If I had to guess, the ancient Sumerian words for “tavern” and “dog eye” might sound similar when said out loud or maybe look similar when written, so it’s probably a long-forgotten play on words
I like the theory that he means he'll open a keg of beer, but since he can't see he bites something else spigot-like at dog-head-height. That way not only is "x walks into a bar" the oldest recorded joke format, "man gets his crotch hurt" is the oldest recorded punchline.
Nope don't over think it, just do . even a dog can walk into a bar and get drunk. Contextually liquor could have been kept on the ground in a dark cool place to where the dog finds a completely dark room and even then as a dog, can open a jar and drink.
It's not a proverb. It's a joke. I don't think we're even certain it's been translated correctly, or if we simply lack the cultural context that made the punchline make sense
I like to think it's a reference to either another joke or a local event where the line everyone remembered was some aspect of the, "I can't see a thing. I'll open this one!" And everyone knew about it in the area. So this was like a callback meme joke.
Caution: I'm not an expert. I'm Chris, displaying a surprising hyperfocus/special interest in a very specific subject that the show will use for a single joke and then never allude to again.
I think this joke (also called "the Sumerian Dog Joke") peaked in popularity around 2022 on Twitter. At the time, a big part of its popularity was the absurd and nonsensical nature of the translation.
But a couple of people claiming to be grad student, researches, or other experts claimed that this common version of the joke was just a clumsy translation. I can't find the original website, but one of these presumed experts suggested a better translation would read something like:
"A dog walked into a bar. He said 'my eyes behold nothing [of worth]. I guess I should open [them].'"
Note that the words in [brackets] are not in the actual translation, but were added to clarify how the other English words should relate to each other. E.g., the dog might open only one eye in the untranslated joke, but the English tranation sounds confusing and wrong unless you use the plural "them" pronoun.
Since I can't find the original page, I can't actually provide evidence about whether this alternate translation is good. As an apology, here's a link to more reliable experts talking about the joke: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/RV1OH2S0s5
additional context: researchers are still debating on exactly what this joke actually means but something close to it is "someone strays (not from the place or a stranger) came in to tavern saying "he can't see a thing" then the tavern owner said he should open his eyes *laugh track* " in ancient sumerian as far as we know its probably a wordplay on how he saying you can't see is spelled or sound like you are closing your eyes
They probably had another word for tavern that also meant something totally different. For example, modern jokes are about walking into a bar, but also a bar could be a pole you walk into. Their word for tavern could be something like (perfindit) but perfindit might also be another thing, like a peep show or something. So when the dog walks into the (perfindit), he’s walking into a tavern but also he’s entering a peep show. This is all speculative btw.
I like the theory that there were a lot hole in the wall bars with no lighting or maybe very dark candles or non at all. Speakeasies maybe. Dogs would be common in them and seen as dumb animals. So the joke is about how many shitty bars there were run by amateurs.
I know it’s frowned upon, but this made me curious. So here’s ChatGPT’s response…
“It’s almost certainly a pun that died in translation.
In Sumerian, “dog” was often slang for a low-status person or a drunk, not literally an animal. “I can’t see a thing” likely meant “I’m clueless / already wasted,” not blind. And “I’ll open this one” probably referred to opening a jar, cask, or door — something you shouldn’t open.
So the joke is basically: an idiot who has no idea what’s going on decides to take charge anyway.
In modern terms: “A drunk guy walks into a bar and says, ‘I have no clue what I’m doing — I’ll handle it.’”
If it’s a joke and there’s no context, I always assume it’s a dick joke of some type.
Apparently some scholars agree, and hypothesized that it has to do with the long straws used to drink the beer, and the fact that the bars were usually dark (and filled with dudes).
It was too dark to see so he grabbed someone’s dick.
It's an extremely old joke lost to time, but one of the best explanations that I've heard for this one is the dog was walking with his eyes closed, walked into a bar (as in hit his head on some kind of bar), and decided to open one of his eyes to see because of it. I don't remember where I heard that one but it stuck for some reason, even though it's likely not the explanation.
The joke is a few thousand years old and relys on either a cultural reference or pun that we no longer understand as it's been lost to time.
Take for example "a horse walks into a bar, the bartender asks why the long face?"
If for example in a few thousand years the understanding that "why the long face?" Means "why do you look sad", and the cultural stereotype of bartenders asking that question are lost. Then the joke would make no sense, as even if the archeologists of the future have a decent idea about the English language, they wouldn't know why a horse is in a bar and a bartender is asking why it's face is long. Because the pun behind the interaction has been lost to time.
Maybe it’s a joke referencing the earliest version of the phrase “blind drunk”? The dog walks in, goes “I can’t see a thing” (as in its already drunk) and therefore it’ll open the nearest “thing” at hand which would presumably be a jar of ale!
I can’t help but feel a connection with more modern idioms and saying, like hair of the dog being referenced towards booze (and of course old medicine but still). We never will know for sure those! Curioser, and curioser.
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IIRC - This one in particular is noted for being basically incomprehensible since it was found written in isolation among relics of the long dead. There's no cultural reference we know of to bring the humor forward into newer phrasing, so it's a kind of touchstone for seeing how so much of what we say and do today is linked to social norms and customs which don't often get written down anywhere.
so basically, no one gets the joke? anymore
Correct. It’s used as an example of both the oldest known “walks into a bar” joke, and also a joke that no one understands because it relies on either a pun or cultural reference that we don’t have the context for and probably never will.
Like imagine future archeologists trying to decipher a joke that says “A man enters a drinking establishment and cries out in pain.”
This is…actually a really good explanation
I had to find the explanation of this one, awesome example here’s some internet points GP ✨
The other two change their posture to avoid encountering the pain
"A man enters a drinking establishment and cries out in pain, His friend is a water fowl"
Got any grapes?
Sokath, his eyes uncovered!
The river Temarc, in winter. /jk
Temba, his arms wide
Shaka, when the walls fell.
Shakira, when the hips lied
Gilgamesh and Enkidu!
Zinda, his eyes red!
Darmok, and Jalad… on the ocean
Hehehe, Gil ga mesh
WHO WAS PHONE?!?
Dicks out for this dead gorilla
Yes our interwebz wisdom will ring through the ages...
The call was coming from inside the house
The phone was disconnected.
I thought it was only me that remembered this, great to see it in the wild again
Is it deprivation?
Dog, the eyes opened.
I already don't understand this joke. Am I too far into the future?
A man walks into a bar, says “ow”
A baby seal walks into a club
Q: What's an Alaskan baby seal's favorite drink?
A: Canadian Club on the rocks
https://preview.redd.it/qz7gpqin2t6g1.png?width=474&format=png&auto=webp&s=b8116b52dc1e3a3a11ae1f0e4e0989cd3f84a2f4
He was a real hit
this joke will probably be uncomprehensible in 1000 years from now thanks to the way language changes
Right that’s the point of the original post. It’s probably a pun or missing a cultural step that makes it not make any sense
https://preview.redd.it/9g59zyspnx6g1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4bdbc46b1d0aceca2d5d5e90ae473307ce2c92d9
A man walks into a bar and says "OUCH". Walking into stout metal objects does tend to do that to a person.
I like the related "Three guys walk into a bar. You'd think one of them would have seen it."
I had always heard it as "3 guys walk into a bar, the 4th one ducks"
Three Germans walk into a BAR
The version I heard was “A man walks into a bar. A couple of minutes later, another man walks into a bar. The first man says “Don’t feel too bad, I didn’t see it, either.”
"A blind guy walks into a bar."
Related, and even more incomprehensible
Jesus Saves, everyone else takes full damage.
Three individuals entered an alcohol emporium. It was assumed that one of them would have perceived it.
My favourite is: Two fish in a tank, one says "I will drive, you man the guns"
Thank you
He used synonyms to make the joke, which depends on a homonym, meaningless.
As the passage of time did to the dog joke.
Or trying to understand the difference between a booty call and a butt dial.
Or “forgive me father, for I have sinned” and “sorry daddy, I’ve been naughty.”
I hope third exact thing survives so far into the future that all cultural connotation is lost to the point that they genuinely cannot decipher the difference. That would be damn funny.
Imagine 1000 years from now someone found this meme without roman history for context
https://preview.redd.it/3t4v1bryau6g1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5b07c8356cfe818501d33307c16bb7c4d0287e6c
Isn’t it also the oldest written joke known? Maybe I’m misremembering, but I could have sworn I’d seen that somewhere, especially since I’ve heard this joke exactly one other time in my life.
There's an older one- "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband’s lap."
There are three immutable facts of life: death, taxes, and fart jokes.
I seen that one, i think the actual context was that she was having sex, not sitting in a lap
Yes but this was the clean version of a fart joke.
Yeah that’s right, I remember that one now. I dunno where I heard this first one at.
Yo mummy so fat, you had to build THREE pyramids!
—King Tut’s younger cousin, probably
Iirc the oldest joke is a fart joke.
“And the third one waterfowls”
But what do male paternal units have to do with this joke? Were they the only creators of humor? No mentions of female paternal unit creating humor, nor non paternal units creating humor? Astounding!
ic ic.. thanks Muroid and d-car for the explanations!
I can only assume they think a religion formed around 67 for the year 2025.
This will happen to anyone born after 2010 who tries to watch Buckaroo Banzi.
67 in another two millennia.
Or another two minutes.
Haha, Classic Sak=ed'Nasir.
Just imagine what people will think looking at spong bob memes a thousand years from now.
Modern scientists should make a tablet like that, where they explain in detail why the "man walks into a bar" joke was funny. Im not kidding, they should get on it
I guess you had to be there...
Or the classic punchline:
The Setesh guard’s nose drips.
I know that one!
A Serpent Guard, Horus Guard and Setesh Guard meet on a neutral planet.
The Serpent Guard's eyes glow.
The Horus' Guard's beak glistens.
The Setesh Guard's nose drips.
Hahaha thats is such a classic, my ribs ache everytime I think about it.
The tavern keeper laughed, we laughed, the table laughed. We killed the table. Good times.
Gotta watch out for those mimics.
I don't get "6-7", can you imagine the poor future archaeologist trying to figure that shit out?
It's the oldest - you had to be there - in history.
Booty call vs butt dial
The joke is known but the internet likes to pretend it isn't for effect.
Basically, the words for "can't see" were the same/sounded the same as "eyes closed" in Sumerian.
So the joke is the dog cant see (your meant to think its due to it being dark in the tavern, when its actually because his eyes are closed), so he opens an eye.
THIS. It's a classic play on a (Sumerian) homophone.
Why did the scarecrow win an award? He was outstanding in his field. So it's a Sumerian 'dad' joke.
That is one popular explanation for the joke, but it's far from definitive. Here's an excellent r/AskHistorians thread on the subject:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/VX8lnv9C5u
It is not known what the joke means. Yours is one interpretation. Another is that the word for inn/tavern could also mean brothel.
The dog (horny man) enters a brothel and complains that he can't see anything (sexual), so he asks if he should open a door (to a room).
But why a dog?
Google "Am I a dog?" in the bible. Perhaps the joke is comparing a stupid human to things that a dog would say.
It could also be a commentary on corrupt officials. "You would have to be as stupid as a dog with his eyes closed to not see the corruption"
"Even a dog could see this if he chose to open his f*cking eyes."
It's a bad pun, transcending time and space for utter groans.
Imagine 2000 years from now someone finding a wood block someone carved this version of Loss into as a joke and trying to figure out what the fuck that symbol means. That’s where we are with this joke.
lmao that's great
We have no cultural context for the joke, right now I could write down “My dog and I went to the bar last night.” And 2000 years from now they won’t know I didn’t mean my Pomeranian, I mean Brian, a guy I’ve know since grade school. Not to mention a medium understanding of the language as a whole, the word we generally translate to “dog” could have 25 different meanings that we just don’t know.
Imagine people in 1500 years finding basically any meme from 2025 and trying to get the joke
https://preview.redd.it/xcw0l72k8v6g1.png?width=320&format=png&auto=webp&s=40deaeb38dba2452cf425d28d819bc479ed6334a
It won't take 1500 years...
I was thinking about that 67 stuff, but this is actually a perfect example
Try to understand some memes from 2015 when you are 15 yo…
"Zlorgon, what is 6,7 lol?"
Its the oldest Cow Tools in the world.
Very disappointing, not another dodecahedron.
I mean, I get it. It's a real knee-slapper, actually. But like a sparrow in a bowling alley, I'll never tell!
I’m gonna hazard a guess.
It’s believed by some archaeolinguists that the dog might have its eyes closed, or is in a dark bar opening a window, or is opening a container of alcohol.
Or that it is the absurdity of the dog is blind and somehow opening something, what could it possibly be opening?
But for all we know they could have the same symbol for open that they use for all three actions, and that could be the joke.
Edit, clarification.
so you literally had to be there
What was the third shaker for???
(Anyone not sure what I mean the seasoning rack that holds salt and pepper on tables or in restaurants used to always come for 3 seasonings not just salt and pepper and it’s not documented what was in it so it’s lost to time for a similar reason unless it’s been unearthed since I last read of it)
It was mustard, probably in a dry, powdered form.
Since it became a popular Internet mystery people have done better research on more first-hand sources and the conclusion is that mustard was very often considered a trio with salt and pepper in the context of cruets.
Sick, I decided to read some more into it and it seems like time period, season, and even region plays a part in some of the possibilities, too.
Could there be some linguistic homonyms we are unaware of? The most simple one would be for example "this one" being a window, and somehow relating to something what dogs do?
Possibly, but you'd probably need to speak slang from 3,500 years ago to know for sure.
As long as they don't sell r/ReallyShittyCopper, I'm good
What if it's they're version of a "no soap radio" joke?
All the great advancements in archeology, and we can't even ascribe meaning to a joke.
God help the space crabs when they find 6-7 and Skibidi Toilet among our ruins.
i'm reciting this from memory, and im pretty dumb, so take it with a grain of salt:
The Sumerians lived 4000 to 2000 b.c.e.
This "proverb" was found on some pottery(?) i believe. For us this is gibberish.
It seems like for an ancient Sumerian this was hillarious enough to scribe it onto some pottery.
Its an example of of the society in which you live, the language you speak and so on form your way of thinking.
To turn around the perspective: A modern, pop-cultural joke would totally go over the head of an ancient sumerian, even if you could translate it perfectly.
My best guess is that the wording might've had a double meaning in it's native language along with the dog wrongfully opening the door to the bar thinking it was the destination it was meant to go to.
That of they were making fun of someone for sure. Lol
Yeah my guess would be a bad pun.
Like, when is a door not a door? When its a jar.
That makes no sense in another language.
My guess is some combo of sumerian words for tavern/bar, open, window, door, seeing, or one etc. Sound similar.
> when is a door not a door? When its a jar.
My best attempt in Polish: Kiedy drzwi nie są drzwiami? Kiedy słoją otworem!
...and I'm really damn proud of myself here :D
it's so much worse a case of only-for-natives than the original :D
explanation, step by step:
"ajar" means open, "otwarty" in Polish
"a jar" means, well, round glass container, "słoik" in Polish, and if it's big, it can be called "słój"
for something wide-open, we have in Polish a phrase, "stać otworem", which literally translates as "stand an orifice" - constructed just like "stand a possibility/chance". Sth is wide open = Coś stoi otworem ~~ Sth stands an orifice
so you can say "the door is wide open" = "drzwi stoją otworem", that's perfectly normal phrase
but I wrote "drzwi słoją otworem"
I replaced "T" with "Ł". This made "stoją" sound like "słoj+ą". For a native listener, it's a clear reference to "słój" (big jar), but the word is flexed to sound like a verb in a continuous form (so, kinda "jar-ing").
why it's so bad?
The phrase "stoją otworem" is so specific and coined, that, when "słoją otworem" is written, probably noone would read it correctly, everyone would miss the Ł and would read T, and joke is gone.
and then, finally, to get the joke, you need to know the english version, and notice JAR~SŁOJ literal translation..
(*) in PL, "złoją" can be pronounced as "z-łoją", but almost always it's pronounced as "s-łoją" because of some phonetic effects and lazy and/or hasty speech, it takes noticeable effort to say 'z' as true 'z' sound in this word
While it may be a bit rough to understand without the full context, the effort you put into this is amazing and I appreciate you
I don't feel like I really learned something, but I did enjoy reading that. Solid breakdown :)
I remember another theory, that it might be a sex joke: back then, bars/taverns/brothels were supposedly the same establishment, so it could be read as "the dog walks into a brothel and says 'I can't see anything, I'll open that one". And the humor may come from the double meaning (does the dog want to "open" a beer or something, or does it want to "open" a woman from a brothel?), or from another sexual double-entendre.
Keep in mind, it's only one of multiple theories. But we know that on this subreddit the joke is always porn, so... I had to mention it.
One of the speculations is that it's a reference to people getting frisky, in side rooms, but we don't have a ton of evidence beyond just a couple bits here and there where some people would ply their trade on the side at local gathering holes
The Romans scribbled lots of dick jokes on walls that we still get today. I guess this joke wasn't dirty enough to survive.
Even 6 7?
Especially 6 7
It’s the oldest joke “Walks into a bar” theme but because direct translation for Sumerian language to English doesn’t work well it has ruined the joke.
My money says it's not even the oldest "walks into a bar" joke, but meta joke that came up later from a play on words
Is it bc the tavern is a hole in the wall and the dog really dug that place?
Buh-duhm-tiss
This has been discussed on Reddit before I can’t do a better job https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/PmGShDAyJR
I’ve seen this somewhere before. It has something to do with the dog’s “third eye”.
Well I’m stumped
Maybe the fact that it's on pottery means something. Perhaps food and wine are stored in clay jars, and a big clay jar was also being used as a shit/piss pot. Now the dog can't read (can't see a thing) and even though the piss pot is marked in other ways that people of the time would recognize, the dog couldn't read and snatched the lid off the jar looking for a snack/drink. So the joke was a cutesy thing to put on a chamber pot in a fun little old Airbnb. Just an idea.
It must be the dog is asking for a bud light. My dad would use the same joke when asking me to go get a beer from the fridge for him (specifically he'd say, "it's a little dark in here" *fingers make a graba beer motion). I always knew his jokes were really old. (/s for it being the actual explanation btw)
TIL they had bud light in Sumer.
You should try on r/BauninshegExplainethYeJest
I know this one:
Its the oldest recorded Joke it was found on an old summerian clay tablet.
The problem is we today don't know why it's funny anymore.
It is very likely that it is a pun, but we don't know the summerian words that were supposed to sound very similar.
My guess is its bright and the dog has been working all day in the sun. Dog went into a dark bar and decided who cares whats in this jar my eyes haven't adjusted yet i just need booze right now and could care less what I'm drinking. appears to me to be a standard blue collar joke similar to the modern ones about working to much and getting drunk. we just have lights in our bars but otherwise same rules.
Ohhh I get it
Explain.
Try explaining 67 to a sumerian
There's a pun were missing due to lack of context and knowledge.
A pony goes to the doctor and says “I’m a little hoarse.” Is a funny dad joke in English, but a non-native speaker won’t get it. It’s that, but to an even greater extenet
lost in translation and lost in time
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_joke#First_recorded_example
See https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/tbgetc/this_bar_joke_from_ancient_sumer_has_been_making/
It does feel sort of sad that we’ll never be able to understand what the joke is. That bit of information is forever lost
Probably a pun or play on words
Maybe it's like what happens every day in kitchens- a dumb ass walks into the cooler- doesn't see the open in use container and opens another one... idk
1,000 years from now, archeology proves that humans at the year 2000 had cats as God's.
My hypothesis is that the word tavern is a pun for a slang word.
LMAO you had to be there I always get a kick out of this one
Basically Sumerian 6 7
If I had to guess, the ancient Sumerian words for “tavern” and “dog eye” might sound similar when said out loud or maybe look similar when written, so it’s probably a long-forgotten play on words
𝐪𝐚𝐫𝐚
I imagine it would be like telling an ancient summarian "blind as a welders dog!"
CLASSIC SUMERIAN!
Either a cultural reference that we don't get (because it's Sumerian) or a pronunciation joke that we don't get (also because it's Sumerian).
Wait, it makes sense to me if by dog it meant cur. Then it's about the local drunk just grabbing whatever bottle right.
Histories first known "inside joke". You had to be there (ancient sumeria) to get it
I like the theory that he means he'll open a keg of beer, but since he can't see he bites something else spigot-like at dog-head-height. That way not only is "x walks into a bar" the oldest recorded joke format, "man gets his crotch hurt" is the oldest recorded punchline.
Nope don't over think it, just do . even a dog can walk into a bar and get drunk. Contextually liquor could have been kept on the ground in a dark cool place to where the dog finds a completely dark room and even then as a dog, can open a jar and drink.
It’s an ancient example of “if you know, you know” and no one alive knows.
The first inside joke
It's not a proverb. It's a joke. I don't think we're even certain it's been translated correctly, or if we simply lack the cultural context that made the punchline make sense
Would not be surprised if the word tavern is mistranslated due to it being also one of the first uses of slang
I like to think it's a reference to either another joke or a local event where the line everyone remembered was some aspect of the, "I can't see a thing. I'll open this one!" And everyone knew about it in the area. So this was like a callback meme joke.
6 7 never dies...
Dog is blind drunk but wants another round (no idea if this is accurate at all)
A Zen koan before zen koans.
Caution: I'm not an expert. I'm Chris, displaying a surprising hyperfocus/special interest in a very specific subject that the show will use for a single joke and then never allude to again.
I think this joke (also called "the Sumerian Dog Joke") peaked in popularity around 2022 on Twitter. At the time, a big part of its popularity was the absurd and nonsensical nature of the translation.
But a couple of people claiming to be grad student, researches, or other experts claimed that this common version of the joke was just a clumsy translation. I can't find the original website, but one of these presumed experts suggested a better translation would read something like:
"A dog walked into a bar. He said 'my eyes behold nothing [of worth]. I guess I should open [them].'"
Note that the words in [brackets] are not in the actual translation, but were added to clarify how the other English words should relate to each other. E.g., the dog might open only one eye in the untranslated joke, but the English tranation sounds confusing and wrong unless you use the plural "them" pronoun.
Since I can't find the original page, I can't actually provide evidence about whether this alternate translation is good. As an apology, here's a link to more reliable experts talking about the joke: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/RV1OH2S0s5
Idiots, dogs owned taverns during Sumerian times. It’s not a joke, the dog is just saying he’ll open the empty tavern.
This is really going to annoy me; probably forever it would seem.
Open it? So the light get in and so on?
additional context: researchers are still debating on exactly what this joke actually means but something close to it is "someone strays (not from the place or a stranger) came in to tavern saying "he can't see a thing" then the tavern owner said he should open his eyes *laugh track* " in ancient sumerian as far as we know its probably a wordplay on how he saying you can't see is spelled or sound like you are closing your eyes
He’s not saying that he’ll open the tavern because there’s no one and nothing inside of it? That’s my take.
It’s a joke but built so much on cultural context of ancient Sumer that we have no idea what it means in the modern day.
They probably had another word for tavern that also meant something totally different. For example, modern jokes are about walking into a bar, but also a bar could be a pole you walk into. Their word for tavern could be something like (perfindit) but perfindit might also be another thing, like a peep show or something. So when the dog walks into the (perfindit), he’s walking into a tavern but also he’s entering a peep show. This is all speculative btw.
I like the theory that there were a lot hole in the wall bars with no lighting or maybe very dark candles or non at all. Speakeasies maybe. Dogs would be common in them and seen as dumb animals. So the joke is about how many shitty bars there were run by amateurs.
We've finally found the joke that even this sub can't explain
It’s a Sumerian joke that you won’t understand without extensive knowledge of Gozer the Gozerian, and his minions, Zuul, and Vinz Clortho.
Sumerian way of saying “six seven”
I know it’s frowned upon, but this made me curious. So here’s ChatGPT’s response…
“It’s almost certainly a pun that died in translation. In Sumerian, “dog” was often slang for a low-status person or a drunk, not literally an animal. “I can’t see a thing” likely meant “I’m clueless / already wasted,” not blind. And “I’ll open this one” probably referred to opening a jar, cask, or door — something you shouldn’t open.
So the joke is basically: an idiot who has no idea what’s going on decides to take charge anyway.
In modern terms: “A drunk guy walks into a bar and says, ‘I have no clue what I’m doing — I’ll handle it.’”
Same joke, 4,000 years ago.”
Im sorry, don’t hate me!
it's a pun that lost it's meaning through translation.
it would be better like this:
"a dog entered a bar with both of his eyes closed. he says: "i can't see a thing! i should crack one open!""
A Sumerian tablet says this. There is nothing else to this. Nobody knows what it means.
Puns don’t really work in another language, because they don’t have th same homonyms. That’s very likely what happened here
Sumerian brain-rot: a dog walks into a bar, shits on the floor, then leaves, the end. lmao
Mesopotamian taverns were also brothels. The joke, like always, is porn.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
If it’s a joke and there’s no context, I always assume it’s a dick joke of some type.
Apparently some scholars agree, and hypothesized that it has to do with the long straws used to drink the beer, and the fact that the bars were usually dark (and filled with dudes).
It was too dark to see so he grabbed someone’s dick.
It's an extremely old joke lost to time, but one of the best explanations that I've heard for this one is the dog was walking with his eyes closed, walked into a bar (as in hit his head on some kind of bar), and decided to open one of his eyes to see because of it. I don't remember where I heard that one but it stuck for some reason, even though it's likely not the explanation.
Its eyes were closed?
The oldest joke in the world, of course, is "Haha, 'penis.'"
How can she slap?
"A decapitated man walks into a pub.
-I seem to be a little short, can you just give it extra head?"
The joke is a few thousand years old and relys on either a cultural reference or pun that we no longer understand as it's been lost to time.
Take for example "a horse walks into a bar, the bartender asks why the long face?"
If for example in a few thousand years the understanding that "why the long face?" Means "why do you look sad", and the cultural stereotype of bartenders asking that question are lost. Then the joke would make no sense, as even if the archeologists of the future have a decent idea about the English language, they wouldn't know why a horse is in a bar and a bartender is asking why it's face is long. Because the pun behind the interaction has been lost to time.
Ahhhhhhh OP! I get it! Hahahahahahahahahah
-Me, an ancient Sumerian-
The dog opened a woman's legs at a brothel.
I took it as his “eye” can’t see a thing so he’ll try opening the other one
Maybe it’s a joke referencing the earliest version of the phrase “blind drunk”? The dog walks in, goes “I can’t see a thing” (as in its already drunk) and therefore it’ll open the nearest “thing” at hand which would presumably be a jar of ale!
I can’t help but feel a connection with more modern idioms and saying, like hair of the dog being referenced towards booze (and of course old medicine but still). We never will know for sure those! Curioser, and curioser.
Finally a joke we don’t know the context for. It would be excellent if you knew or didn’t know the context.
Did the dog walk in with its eyes closed?
Funniest joke I ever saw.
It’s basically the Sumerian equivalent of this: 👌
They hadn't invented Know Your Meme yet so we'll never know
Spiderman pointing at Spiderman.
It’s not originally in English so I wonder if there’s also meaning lost in translation
i know a pun when i see one translated