Archaeologists find 5,000-year-old 'tavern' in ancient Iraqi city of Lagash

Discovery was made in the Al-Shatra district, north-east of the modern city of Nasiriyah

An aerial picture shows a general view of the newly-excavated trench which may have contained an inn with a cooling area for food storage, at the site of the ancient city-state of Lagash, in Iraq's al-Shatra district of the southern Dhi Qar province on February 11, 2023. - Italian and US archaeologists excavating in Lagash in southern Iraq have unearthed a Sumerian "tavern" old nearly 5,000 years old, complete with benches, a cooling system acting as a refrigerator, and bowls containing leftover food. (Photo by Asaad NIAZI / AFP)

A clay kiln at the newly-excavated trench

Another image of the site in Iraq's Al-Shatra district of the southern Dhi Qar province

A clay tablet bearing fingerprints

Pottery fragments

The site in Lagash

A broken pottery jar

A drainage pipe made of clay found at the site

Iraqi archaeologist Baqer Azab Wali standing by the newly-excavated trench at the site

Archaeologists in southern Iraq have uncovered the remains of a tavern dating back nearly 5,000 years which they hope will illuminate the lives of ordinary people in the world's first cities.

The US-Italian team made the find in the ruins of ancient Lagash, north-east of the modern city of Nasiriyah, which was known to have been one of the first urban centres of the Sumerian civilisation of ancient Iraq.

The joint team from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Pisa discovered the remains of a primitive refrigeration system, a large oven, benches for diners and about 150 serving bowls.

Fish and animal bones were found in the bowls, alongside evidence of beer drinking, which was widespread among the Sumerians.

“So we've got the refrigerator, we've got the hundreds of vessels ready to be served, benches where people would sit … and behind the refrigerator is an oven that would have been used … for cooking food,” project director Holly Pittman told AFP.

“What we understand this thing to be is a place where people ― regular people ― could come to eat and that is not domestic,” she said.

“We call it a tavern because beer is by far the most common drink, even more than water, for the Sumerians,” she said, adding that in one of the temples excavated in the area “there was a beer recipe found on a cuneiform tablet”.

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The world's first cities developed in what is now southern Iraq after agricultural surpluses from the domestication of the first crops allowed the emergence of new social classes not engaged directly in food production.

The Lagash area, close to the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, was called the “garden of the gods” by the ancients for its fertility and gave rise to a string of Sumerian cities dating back to the early dynastic period.

“Lagash was one of the important cities of southern Iraq,” Iraqi archaeologist Baker Azab Wali told AFP, after working with the US-Italian team on the site.

“Its inhabitants depended on agriculture, livestock, fishing, but also on the exchange of goods,” he said.

Ms Pittman said the team was eager to learn more about the occupations of the people who used the tavern in its heyday around 2700BC, to throw new light on the social structure of the first cities.

A detailed analysis would need to be carried out on the samples taken during the excavations the team completed in November.

“There is so much that we do not know about this early period of the emergence of cities and that is what we are investigating,” she said.

“We hope to be able to characterise the neighbourhoods and the kinds of occupation … of the people that lived in this big city who were not the elite,” she added.

“Most of the work done at the other sites focuses on kings and priests. And that is all very important but the regular people are also important.”