This doesn't quite answer your question, but does tackle a commonly held and related underlying assumption that ancient beliefs can't or weren't sincerely believed: this answer by u/DarthPositus on Greek's belief in their gods and this one by u/mythoplokos on Greek's belief in myths.

This is usually a question that students of archaeology, rather than history, stumble upon sooner rather than later. In my case the cat question was related to the 'mother goddess' at Catal Höyük and similar figures from different eras. The question went along the lines of "Was there really a wide-scale worship of big-breasted mothergodesses or were these figures just early porn?". The short snippet on the linked site opens up what I'll try to elaborate on in this post - namely how archaeologists and historians to a lesser degree come up with their theories. My field of study used to be Near Eastern Archaeology, so I won't be able to go into the specifics of egyptian cat cults, but I'll try to give a small overview as to how archaeolgists end up with certain interpretations.

As a basis, we have to keep in mind that we're building our knowledge on hundreds of years of research which has been in a state of flux. Speaking in general, archaeologists, and historians to some degree, only establish theories. We find things and create theories that can change over time. A consensus might or might not be reached and might possibly change when new information comes to light, be it due to new digs, new texts or even new technologies used to analyze previously discarded evidence.

A prime example would be Winckelmann's Studies (1760's) on Greek and Roman statues, which were based on the idea that the state we found them in (unpainted, perfectly white) was their intended state. When he published his interpretation, it became a popular opinion that pure white statues were the epitome of beauty. In his opinion, colors found on statues were signs of barbarian abnormalties and not the intended way the artists made them. His publication "The History of Art in Antiquity" in turn influenced a lot of neo-classical art, which is why many people still view pure white marble statues as peak beauty. Nowadays, we know that most statues and buildings were painted - some even rather gaudy for our own tastes (examples). It still took a rather long time for the consensus to switch, or rather to reach the public and not be limited to scientific circles.

In a similar, more recent case, when Klaus Schmidt started to publish his findings from Göbekli Tepe (2001 for the preliminary reports of the first few seasons), he suggested that they were purely sacred sites with only temporary inhabitants. Quasi a pre-historical Mekka where hunter-gatherers gathered occasionally. This had rather large implications for (local) history, as it would mean that before hunter-gatherer socities (permanently) settled in the area, they had already started to create permanent places with sacred (thus the interpretation as shrines) or social functions. Schmidt later revised this and suggested that there might have been some permanent personel on site. The most famous counter to Schmidt's early theories came in 2011 by Edward Banning who suggested we're basing our opinion on incomplete research and maybe we're just looking at symbol-rich houses. And even 20 years after Schmidts first publication, there's no "100%" answer as to what exactly Göbekli Tepe was. There's some general consensus based on the found architectual remains as well as small finds or rather the general lack of certain small finds that would be indicative of permanent settlement. But due to the nature of archaeology (you can only dig so much), it's enterily possible that we're one dig season away from scrapping all that, though the focus of the dig has shifted since Schmidt's death in 2014, imo for the worse, towards a more small-scale approach so we'll probably never really know.

And this is where your question comes in again. For most of prehistory and early history, we're basing our opinions on material finds. Ideally, we cross-reference in the same time or shortly after (for Göbekli Tepe Schmidt's "Sie Bauten die Ersten Tempel" from 2009 does exactly that), try to slot it into overarching developments that have been established (like this series on architectual history [there's more books labled studies 4 and 5] by the Max Planck institute, in german) and then to make educated guesses based on this. But they more often then not remain guesses - even in times were we have written records, it's not very often that we get explicit texts on what something was intended for but that's another can of worms. These guesses are, in the most optimal cases, backed by evidence and the later in time we get, the more kinds of records we can use to back our guesses and the more sure we can be that we're correct. So we can't 100% rule out that cat-worship in ancient egypt was all an elaborate, wide-scale hoax. But we can make a pretty good guess that this wasn't the case. If we ever find evidence of it being a hoax, we can adjust the theory, much like Schmidt (or the team at Catal Höyük) did to a certain degree or how Winkelmanns ideas have been challenged and adjusted.

On a very much less serious note, David Macauly created a great book in 1979 called Motel of the Mysteries, where life in North America got wiped out in 1984 and archaeologists hundreds of years later are interpreting bedrooms as burial chambers and toilets as sacred urns. The book plays on the stereotypical idea that whatever archaeologists find, it's always a burial site, a temple or palace - which is something that used to happen a lot in older digs. It's a good example why we need to adjust our theories, as it's ok to interpret a large building as a palace but if you know there's generally only one or maybe a few palaces and you find 28 of the same kind of building, it gets a bit tricky to justify "Palace A-Z" in your publication.

/e: Reddit formatting is still a bit of a pain.

I was out hunting together with two Yukaghirs, an elderly and a younger hunter, and they had succeeded in killing a brown bear. While the elderly hunter was poking out its eyes with his knife and croaking like a raven as custom prescribes, the younger one, who was standing a few meters away, shouted to the bear: “Grandfather, don’t be fooled, it is a man, Vasili Afanasivich, who killed you and is now blinding you!” At first the elderly hunter doing the butchering stood stock-still as if he were in shock, but then he looked at his younger partner and they both began laughing ecstatically as if the whole ritual were a big joke. Then the elderly hunter said to the younger one, “Stop fooling around and go make a platform for the grandfather’s bones.” However, he sounded by no means disturbed. Quite the opposite, in fact: he was still laughing while giving the order. The only really disturbed person was me, who saw the episode as posing a serious threat to my entire research agenda, which was to take animism seriously. The hunter’s joke suggested that underlying the Yukaghir animistic cosmology was a force of laughter, of ironic distance, of making fun of the spirits. How could I take the spirits seriously as an anthropologist when the Yukaghirs themselves did not?

I experienced several incidents of this kind which, I must now admit, I left out of my books on Yukaghir animism, as they posed a real danger to my theoretical agenda of taking indigenous animism seriously. One time, for example, an old hunting leader was making an offering to his helping-spirit, which is customary before an upcoming hunt. However, while throwing tobacco, tea, and vodka into the fire, he shouted, “Give me prey, you bitch!” Everyone present doubled up with laugher. Similarly, a group of hunters once took a small plastic doll, bought in the local village shop, and started feeding it fat and blood. While bowing their heads before the doll, which to everyone’s mind was obviously a false idol with no spiritual dispositions whatsoever, they exclaimed sarcastically, “Khoziain [Russian “spirit-master”] needs feeding.” Direct questioning about such apparent breaches of etiquette often proved fruitless. One hunter simply replied, “We are just having fun,” while another came up with a slightly more elaborate answer, “We make jokes about Khoziain because we are his friends. Without laughter, there will be no luck. Laughing is compulsory to the game of hunting.”

This incredible quote comes from an article by Danish anthropologist Rane Willerslev, so these were somewhat recent events; but I think the underlying idea is not a modern invention. If the spirit world helps us and exists all around us, then why exactly should we choose any one particular object to represent that spirit? And if we choose an object in jest, it doesn't dissipate the potency of the ritual because we are his friends. The spirits may laugh at us when we fail, why can't we laugh back at them?

There are many societies who (at least historically) had periods of ceremony in which masqueraders would run around the village "being clowns," as in doing tricks or pranks for a laugh. Sometimes they'd go further and really pick on certain people, and these were usually the ones who were rude or took themselves too seriously during normal times. The spirit world made itself physical in the form of a masquerader who, for the sake of laughter, helps remind individuals to laugh at themselves. Regarding "sacred clowns" in North American indigenous communities Peggy Beck & Anna Walters summarize this idea:

...we heard a number of individuals say that to learn you should not “ask why.” By asking “Why” you limit your chances of experiencing sacred knowledge. Another reason people say you should not “ask why,” is that the subject being asked may be too dangerous. Without proper instruction beforehand the person asking “why” might be harmed. In Native American communities the Clowns are the ones that “ask why.” They are often the only ones that may “ask why” in reference to dangerous objects, or “ask why” of those people who are specialists in advanced sacred knowledge. They ask in their backwards language, through their satire, and their fooling around, the questions we would like to ask. They say the things we might be afraid to say to those we might be afraid to speak to. Even though they may not or cannot conceptualize their knowledge, the answers to our questions - the truths, the philosophy, and the wisdom - comes through to us.

In the Roman world this experience was found in Saturnalia - when the social world was reversed. For a day or a short while, a slave in the household would act as pater familias, and was served by the master's family or simply served first. In this brief period in December slaves could vent their grievances and act on whatever they had been holding back. A frightening thought for a master, and so masters should never forget this and act accordingly on every other day of the year. But of course, this brief reversal would end; and so slaves too should not forget that any grievances aired would have to be bottled back up - it worked both ways. This tradition continued into the Christian world in a new form: "Bishop for a Day," in which an altar boy was given this honor. And more generally the riotous rule-breaking festival was continued in the form of Carnival. A festival in which everyone dressed in masquerade, and under such armor you could even mock the clergy publicly.

Saturnalia also included giving little gifts and sometimes these were serious (money, statuettes, books) but other times they were jokes - gag gifts. Of course, a gift intended as a joke is not really a gift; but that interpretation is too simplistic, because then the gift is the experience of laughter itself. This tradition continues unabated, gag gifts are still given at Christmas. And their nature as a joke does not diminish their value as an expression of one's love and friendship for another. In fact, the ability to give this type of gift may even hinge on such factors - would you give a gag gift to a social superior in a formal setting?

But back to your question about jokes, they are so difficult to detect in historical texts. The late 16th century Italian gnostic and heretic philosopher Domenico Scandella said to an inquisitor, "You might as well go and confess to a tree than to priests and monks." And at first glance, this appears to be an insult and a joke; in line with his other comments against monks and priests who think they're better than everyone else. But, other peasants reported him saying things like "Everything that we see is god, and we are gods...The sky, earth, sea, air, abyss, and hell, all is god." While these comments are not directly from him, it does cohere with his other holistic sentiments; so knowing this we can look at his insult again in a new light. Perhaps he meant it as a joke, but perhaps he was quite serious...confessing to a tree was as valuable as confessing to a human since what difference was there really?

From Rane Willerslev's work we only get brief glimpses at people joking with the spirits. In the ancient world we normally see people laughing at deity statues when they're coming from condescension, as Jewish Yahwhist prophets mock other Jews for creating false icons. Christians continued this trope, mocking pagans and their "false idols" which can't actually do anything for their worshipers. At the beginning of Aristophanes' play Frogs, we see a comic servant character Xanthias arguing with his master none other than the god Dionysus. Sometimes Xanthias is saying a joke at the god's expense, and sometimes the god is saying one at his. But to add a meta twist, the audience would've been laughing with/at the god all the while being seated with a statue of that god - as a statue was brought into the theater during the City Dionysia festival which Aristophanes wrote these comedies for. Afaik situations like this is the closest we can get in ancient texts if we're looking for examples of people "laughing at the gods."

I originally used Rane's quote in an answer about How did European preconceptions distort the study of Native American mythology? and I've written about Domenico Scandella in an answer about How were 16th century "atheists" treated by society?. If you'd like to read about indigenous North American "clowns" there's this great article Sacred Clowns and Fools, by Beck & Walters, and if you'd like to read some about Saturnalia there's a great article Encyclopedia Romana: Saturnalia, by James Grout and for more details there's Celebrating the Saturnalia: Religious Rituals and Roman Domestic Life, by Fanny Dolansky and the second link at canvas.brown.edu downloads a pdf of it.

Santa is a great reference because I think your question has two components: belief as truth and belief as ritual. Plenty of people today would say they believe in Santa, especially if they're aged 5 or under. That's belief in an unknown abstraction that represents "something." But that's only part of it; the ritual surrounding holiday gatherings, shopping, family/friends, carols, etc should not be overlooked. They are very real, very representative of joy, mirth, love, caring, thoughts towards others, and so on. For some, Santa even acts as a modern day Dionysus with eggnog instead of wine. It's an important aspect of culture in this age which historians 3000 years from now will note as such, with a certain sense of seriousness to it such as the ritual of gift giving, the ritual of special drink, and other associations typically made with the Christmas holiday in particular. And they'll discover that through expanded awareness of what Santa and the holiday rituals entailed, why they were done that way, and by who.

Because at the end of the day, it's the lack of contextual awareness that leads us to believing something ancient cultures did or thought was to be taken with 100% literal seriousness. Once awareness is established, one learns that these are never really "jokes," only misunderstandings. An example of this would be use of an ear of corn to represent a phallus in rituals executed by the cult of Dionysus. The "joke" is the use of corn not just as a cylindrical representation of a phallus (plenty of such objects existed), but that corn was also edible, giving the phallic substitute a direct tie to oral sex. One of undoubtedly many "secrets" found in the Eleusinian mysteries.

See, secrets something found in all religions, I believe, throughout history as the duality of exoteric belief and ritual is countered with esoteric belief and ritual. There were restrictions that applied to certain parts of the temple (or the whole temple), rituals without any human audience (ie, only a priest/king with their god), and certain knowledge and/or texts were kept out of reach of the general public. This creates serious distortions in the evidence we have access to. We know a lot less than people in antiquity as the passage of time has removed from our collective memory, records of history, and archaeology the overwhelming majority of "facts" we all would love to know. Oral traditions and knowledge as well as an insane amount of written records from 1000+ years ago are gone, as are the secrets they held. Even with written records we do have, often times they are very difficult to interpret because context is not given. Thus any reconstruction of the spiritual and religious beliefs in the ancient worlds are, by definition, very provisional in nature.

Building upon sociologist George Simmel's seminal work The Sociology of Secrets and of Secret Societies, Albert de Jong says there are three distinct areas of secrecy our historical studies must consider: secret knowledge, secret ritual, and secret identities. Secrets as a whole are annoying to scholars and historians alike. Often times, any claim of "secrecy" is met with contempt. Secrets are seen as problematic: documentation is difficult. This is mainly encountered with secret identities, when an individual or group sought to remain "hidden" for whatever reason(s) through a mutually agreed upon bond of concealment. However, such elusiveness wouldn't often shield them completely from the annals of history. Recruitment or spreading of knowledge/ritual wouldn't be possible without someone being aware. So we encounter "hints" and "references" to various secret identities through other sources, usually "unofficial." This is big in Japan where a whole culture of secrecy has existed and continues to exist in the world of Japanese religion, though it existed outside of the religious world as well, ranging from continued scholarly discussion around who and what a "ninja" was, to esoteric secrets found in waka poetry as devised by Fujiwara Tameaki in the 13th century, to secrets in Noh plays by Konparu Zenchiku (of Zeami's line, who, himself, was a master of secrets), to rituals of Tokugawa Shogun in Edo- both living and dead.

It's with those examples (and much more) where the aspects of secret knowledge and secret ritual come into play. Pamela Long in her book Openness, Secrecy, Authorship: Technical Arts and the Culture of Knowledge from Antiquity to Renaissance takes one of the first attempts that I'm aware of to attribute a modern concept, intellectual property, and apply it to a non-so-modern culture. As she points out, knowledge- both technical, such as metallurgy, and religious- is kept in secret for numerous reasons, amongst which include maintaining power, wealth, well-being, and/or, in the case of religious secrets, to keep from "profaning" the mysteries. The extent of knowledge surrounding such secrets varied from culture to culture. For example, in the Mesopotamia region, when priesthood tended to be a lifelong vocation, vast amounts of study and awareness were required to perform the complicated rituals and give solid grounding in theology and literature. Comparatively, among Greek and Roman priesthoods as I understand it, they were chiefly honorary positions, not lifelong jobs, and such priests were not generally transmitters of sacred traditions. This secret/sacred knowledge was of the type believed to represnt truths about reality that not all mortals were able or entitled to acquire. Pythagoras and Empedocles are two well-known examples of individuals who maintained small circles of knowledge transmission like this. The Corpus Hermeticum would be an example of the type of such "secret" knowledge that was handed down, usually with a focus on silence and ritual which helps one understand the gods and the divine.

Don't forget that the word "mystery" is derived from the Greek mystērion which means "initiation." It comes from the verb myeō ("to initiate") and later on came to mean "divine secret" in early Christian literature, as I understand it. This is where "secret rituals" emerge, the process, transmission, initiation, etc into that secret knowledge. The mysteries of Eleusis hinted at earlier are an example of that. There are public details about the rituals such as vestments worn, rules for hair and makeup, etc; but then the ritual for the initiation, itself, often remained secret- and to this day we don't know exactly what took place. It's that lack of knowledge/awareness that has driven scholars for generations to hunt for those secrets- though I think most scholars today would agree that secret initiation rituals had little to do with secret theologies.

(cont)

(also edited some words because I can't spell)

If we're discussing the sincerity of religious observation, then there are instances where Ancient Chinese funerary and ritual customs may have been more performative rather than done in earnest. This however is not an example of humor, which I cannot provide any evidence of from my scope of knowledge. Nonetheless, as it is related, I think it's worth examining how religion and ritual serves as many practical purposes as spiritual motivations.

Ancestor veneration is deeply rooted in Chinese tradition and society, practiced since the Neolithic Period and the Shang Dynasty, with maturation in the Zhou and Han Dynasties. Dedicated temples were to be built in the capitals and cities of these prosperous civilizations, and were of utmost importance to the royal family. It was understood that the spirits of one's ancestors resided in heaven alongside other gods and divine beings, and wielded some degree of influence upon the mortal world. In order to receive favor and goodwill from the ancestors, rituals and ceremonies were done to invoke the power and aid of the spirits.

These involved elaborately crafted vessels and bronzes, with intricate patterns, designs, and inscriptions, alongside bronze instruments, bells, and other tools. The exact details of how these were used in the rituals is lost to us, but scholars have surmised their usage as food and drink vessels for ceremonial banquets. These ceremonies would be performed in the tombs of the ancestors, and over time as lineages grew and powerful families expanded their realm, such temples and tombs accumulated in size and quantity, with larger and more elaborate halls erected to house the dead. Bronzes would be mostly used by the elite, who could afford such costly and valuable vessels. Logically, they also controlled and influenced the production of distribution of such bronzes, and shows the power of the royal family with the rest of elite society, and to that effect, the rest of the realm. Bronzes were passed down generation from generation, and a tomb could host vessels from varying periods, reflecting the changing times and recalling the glorious past of departed figures.

A royal ancestral temple complex would follow specific arrangements that reflected a seniority ranking of the ancestors. In the back center would lay the founder’s temple, while on the left and right flanks more recent ancestors would be housed in their own temples. The positioning of the temple buildings creates a chronological idea of lineage, with the permanent subjects of worship located in the back to solidify the worshipper’s understanding of their past and origin. During ceremonies, the sequence of performance directs back towards the origin or foundational history of the clan, in this case not to glorify the past but to explain the mythical origins of the entire society. In other words, this was legitimization that allowed for a continuity of history, through connections with the past. Importantly, these temples were arranged according to the four directions, which would mirror larger city layouts. Gates faced each direction, and both temple and city were surrounded by layers of walls. This connects and reflects the functions of the temple with larger society, where the temple is the core center of religious function, political basis, and ancestral/historical origin, the city becomes the extension and embodiment of that power. Accordingly, such a significant and sacred space was limited to special occasions, and over time there would be an effort to close it off from the public world into a more secretive, hidden, and spiritual area. In order to access this otherworldly space, naturally it would be logical to require barriers and distance between the normal everyday world and the temple. Thus, the main temples located in the back require the greatest distance to travel, and physically represent the hierarchy of religion.

Within these key spaces housed bronzes for rituals and ceremonies. Bronze vessels and instruments served not only for ritual acts, but as an archive or family history. The bronzes would contain inscriptions of important events or deeds for descendants to read, showing us how ancient peoples valued their legacy and esteem, likewise they would also honor the memories of their own past. These inscriptions would praise certain figures by describing military campaigns, political events, or pious character traits such as following religious rites or other duties and obligations, namely filial piety.

We can find many examples from the Zhuangbai hoard, a large array of vessels used by an archivist and recordkeeping family for the Zhou court. Here is one example from a certain individual named Zhe:

In the fifth month, the king was at Gan. On the day maozi, the king ordered me, Archivist Zhe, to bestow lands on Marquis Xiang; [other gifts from the king included] bronze metals and servitors. I praise the king's beneficence. In the nineteenth year of the king's reign, I make this vessel for [my deceased] Father Yi. May it be treasured forever [by my descendants]. (Lineage emblem.)

This clan descended from the Shang, the previous ruling dynasty which the Zhou had conquered. They came from a place called Wei, which would have been close to the Shang capital. Zhe's grandson Qiang compiled a history of the Wei family lineage in the Shi Qiang pan, one of the earliest and most important examples of Chinese record keeping. First it details the Zhou royal history:

In antiquity, King Wen first established harmony in government. God on High bestowed on him intelligent virtues. He could thus pacify [the country], hold fast to the whole world, and assemble and receive [tribute delegations] from the ten thousand states. Powerful King Wu campaigned in four directions. He took over the people of the Yin [Shang], consolidated [the achievements of ] his ancestors, and forever quelled the troubles with the [nomadic] Di and the [eastern] Yi. The wise sage-king Cheng, assisted by strong helpers, governed the country with systematic rules. The virtuous King Kang divided the country [by enfeoffing feudal lords]. The broad-minded King Zhao campaigned southward to the regions of Chu and Jing. The brilliant King Mu set a model for the current Son of Heaven, carefully educated him, and provided him with a solid dynastic foundation. Our Son of Heaven has received a great mandate to continue the long royal line King Wen and King Wu began. Our Son of Heaven should enjoy long life and good health. He serves the deities well and glorifies the previous kings and royal ancestors. God on High blesses him so that he may enjoy good harvests and have peoples of all places come to pay their respects.

Next Qiang provides a narrative of his own clan's history.

Our tranquil High Ancestor [Gao Zu] originally resided in Wei. When King Wu had conquered the Shang, our great-great-grandfather, the Brilliant Ancestor [Lie Zu], who had been the archivist of Wei, came to the Zhou court and was received in audience by King Wu. The king commanded the Duke of Zhou to assign him a residence in the Plain of Zhou. Our great-grandfather, Ancestor Yi [Yi Zu], served his king well and enjoyed the king's confidence. Our grandfather, Ancestor Xin [Zu Xin or Zhe, the Subordinate Ancestor], gave birth to many descendants and brought them blessings and happiness. To him we should offer sincere sacrifices. Our father Lord Yi [Yi Gong or Peng] was wise and virtuous. No one uttered criticism of him. He engaged in farming and managed well, and demonstrated the virtues of loyalty, filial piety, and brotherly love.

Finally, Qiang outlines his own version of the history, alongside his own deeds and accomplishments:

I, Qiang the Archivist, work hard all day and night. I dare not neglect court ritual affairs. I praise the brilliant mandate of the Son of Heaven, and for this I make this precious and sacred vessel. It will be used in sacrificing to my Brilliant Ancestor and my fine deceased father, who left me the lineage fief with all its income. May good luck and blessings last until my hair turns white and my skin becomes dry. May I serve my king diligently and well. May this vessel be treasured 10,000 years [by my descendants].

By explaining the history of the Zhou royal house, it interweaves and connects the Wei lineage with the ruling family, legitimizing and lifting the Wei. This inscription also explains how it was made to honor both the founder of the clan and the Emperor himself, showcasing the filial respect. Quite importantly, it also provides a standard history of the family. Qiang's son Xing was another favored and esteemed archiver to the court, who himself had vessels and inscriptions detailing his deeds and piety:

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• 3 4 that say [removed] (haha you're very funny);

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