Ordinarily, I might save this one for the Friday carnival of weekend fun, but sometimes we all need a break from the political hurly-burly with something to lighten the general mood. Let us begin today, then, the site of what may have been the world's earliest-known shebeen. From the Washington Post:
Archaeologists recently excavated a site in Iraq dating to around 2700 B.C. in the ancient Sumerian city-state of Lagash that they think could contain the oldest tavern ever discovered. "We found the remains of a public eatery, the earliest that we are aware of in one of the first cities of southern Mesopotamia,” said Holly Pittman, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and project director of the excavation[...]Archaeologists found a seven-room structure featuring an open courtyard with benches and a large open cooking area with a 10-foot-wide mud-brick oven. They also discovered a primitive refrigerator. Known as a “zeer” in Arabic, the device consisted of two bottomless clay jars that used evaporation to help cool perishable items. In another room, the team discovered a large quantity of conical bowls that held ready-to-eat food and jars that the archaeologists think contained beer.
Cue Tom T. Hall (sorry, I couldn't find the original Sumerian version).
Pittman said they had detected the remains of a kiln at the site. As archaeologists dug down, they found the eatery just below that. “Our field director, Sara Pizzimenti, was really excited when she told me, ‘We have a tavern!’” Pittman recalled. “She trained on Roman tavernas, so she recognized immediately what we had.”
I admire Ms. Pizzimenti for her diligence and enthusiasm.
Inside the structure, archaeologists unearthed a myriad items typically found in eating and drinking establishments of the day. In addition to benches and other areas for people to sit, they found at least 20 bowls with food residue and fish bones. Because the dishes were not cleaned, something sudden and dramatic – perhaps a natural disaster – might have occurred at the tavern.
Or as we used to call it around Lenny's Tap in Milwaukee: Friday night.
Archaeologists don’t know for certain what was in the numerous jars at the tavern. However, the vast number of clay stoppers with seals featuring government markings — the ancient Sumerians kept track of goods for tax and quality purposes — indicates that some of them at least contained alcoholic beverages. “We know that beer was the most common beverage for the Sumerians,” Pittman said. “Indeed, during an earlier excavation, a tablet with a recipe for beer-making was found.”
As history.com reminds us:
Along with inventing writing, the plow, law codes and literature, the Sumerians are also remembered as some of history’s original brewers. Archaeologists have found evidence of Mesopotamian beer-making dating back to the fourth millennium B.C. The brewing techniques they used are still a mystery, but their preferred ale seems to have been a barley-based concoction so thick that it had to be sipped through a special kind of filtration straw. The Sumerians prized their beer for its nutrient-rich ingredients and hailed it as the key to a “joyful heart and a contented liver.” There was even a Sumerian goddess of brewing called “Ninkasi,” who is celebrated in a famous hymn as the “one who waters the malt set on the ground.”
I think I would've made a good Sumerian.
Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.
