The Mesopotamian ancients might have done as many modern folk do, dropping into their local pub on the way home to cap off their daily grind, evidence now shows.
The remains of a “tavern”—complete with an ancient fridge, oven, benches, bowls, and beakers—have been unearthed by researchers in Lagash, an ancient urban area in southern Iraq.
Archaeologists from Penn Museum and the University of Pisa have embarked on an investigation into the lives of populations who may have engaged in early industrial crafts, namely pottery production, potentially revealing the existence of an ancient “middle class.”
This discovery contrasts previous understandings that only two classes—elite and slave—existed in this part of the world at that time.
Located in modern-day Al-Hiba, Lagash was a major, 450-hectare urban center from about 3500 to 2000 B.C. “It was a major political, economic, religious center with a large population and complex city,” Holly Pittman, the project’s director from Penn Museum, told the Epoch Times.
The first scientific excavations occurred here from 1968 to 1978, while the final season of research in 1990 was derailed by the Persian Gulf War. Pittman played a role in that effort and succeeded Donald Hansen as head of the project in 2007.
Excavations didn’t resume until 2019 after an extended hiatus, and November 2022 saw the end of their fourth digging season. These latest discoveries began shedding new light on how “average” Mesopotamians once lived—5,000 years ago.
Using drone photography and magnetometry over the area, they identified evidence of ancient burning, indicating the presence of as many as 11 kilns. The mud-brick structures were hardened by heat, thus preserving them over the millennia.
What was thought to be a kiln at said local “tavern” site turned out to be “a large oven for cooking,” Pittman said, along with “all the features that were associated with” what they identified as a “public eatery.”
Under the direction of Dr. Sara Pizzimenti, from the University of Pisa, the researchers conducted a multi-phase, microstratigraphic peeling back of horizontal depositional layers, one by one. Analyzing each with surgical care—rather than digging straight down—they were able to “travel back in time” to reveal each minuscule detail.
Having uncovered the premises from wall to wall to the floor, the structure consists of a trench measuring 10 by 20 feet, about 7 to 12 inches deep.
Besides the oven, there were benches, fragments of ancient ceramic bowls and beakers, the remains of food, and a 5,000-year-old “cooling device” called a zeer, for chilling refreshments—or in other words a pub refrigerator.
“It’s a circular plan, probably a meter in diameter,” Pittman said. “In the hollow middle of this circle is a space in which a large jar is placed.” As the cavity is subterranean, it could have been covered and kept cool, they hypothesized, perhaps with help from ventilation and evaporation of water in containers found in its surrounds.
Conceivably, after a day’s work molding clay pots or sweating beside a hot furnace, ceramic workers could have patronized the tavern, enjoying its open-air setting while downing a cool beer and having a cooked meal, the researchers postulated.
“We’ve got beakers, so we can be pretty sure that they’re drinking beer there, because beer was the most common beverage among the Sumerians at this time,” Pittman said.
While past projects tended to focus on elite infrastructure—enormous mounds, temples, and such—Pittman and her team are aiming to elucidate the lives of “regular people” engaged in “craft production.”
“[The tavern] is evidence of social and economic—perhaps political—infrastructure that was being in use 5,000 years ago,” she said. “Up until this point, no one has really investigated the lives and the work and the economy of regular people in this early period of civilization.”
Pittman and her team also hope the project’s close association with local Iraqi archeologists and villagers, providing them with training, will kindle their interest in reviving this rich ancient heritage.
