Q 01/05

The oldest known joke, toilet humour from about 1900 BC, comes from which civilisation?

A) Egyptian

B) Greek

C) Sumerian

D) Roman

Answer · why

C) Sumerian

It is a proverb about a young wife who has never once broken wind on her husband's lap, which means the fart joke is at least 4,000 years old.

Q 02/05

In which city is the Westcar Papyrus, containing one of the oldest recorded jokes, on display?

A) Berlin

B) Cairo

C) London

D) Paris

Answer · why

A) Berlin

The papyrus tells five tales at the court of Khufu; in one, King Sneferu is cheered up when a magician has young women in net dresses row him around t...

Q 03/05

What does the title of the Philogelos, the oldest surviving joke book, mean in Greek?

A) Laughter-Lover

B) The Fool's Mirror

C) A Hundred Merry Tales

D) The Book of Wit

Answer · why

A) Laughter-Lover

It was compiled in roughly the fourth or fifth century AD and is written in crude Greek, which suggests it was aimed at ordinary readers rather than s...

Q 04/05

A joke in the ancient Philogelos about a newly bought slave dying is called an ancestor of which Monty Python sketch?

A) Ministry of Silly Walks

B) The Spanish Inquisition

C) Dead Parrot

D) Argument Clinic

Answer · why

C) Dead Parrot

The seller replies that the slave never did that while he owned him. The book is traditionally attributed to two otherwise unknown men, Hierocles and ...

Q 05/05

Roughly how many jokes does the Philogelos, the world's oldest joke book, contain?

A) 264

B) 26

C) 64

D) 164

Answer · why

A) 264

Many are variations on a handful of set-ups, and a whole run of them mocks the citizens of Abdera, Cyme and Sidon as slow-witted.