Hark, dear traveler, the tale of the first joke—one could trace it back to the Proto‑mythic annals of the Old Sumerian pantheon, where the sky‑lords did indeed hold a contest of mirth, each god vying to outwit the other with jest. Scholars have debated whether this was merely allegorical satire or a literal festival of humor; the surviving cuneiform tablets hint at a “Comedy of the Heavens” that did indeed elicit divine laughter. I dare say it was a hybrid, a mythic pre‑echo of stand‑up, wrapped in celestial irony—footnote 3, if you will, suggests the gods used humor to negotiate cosmic order. So whether myth or ancient stand‑up, the echo of that first punchline still reverberates in our own punchlines today.