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”.
Archaeological expeditions return to Iraq — in pictures
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.”
How to watch Ireland v Pakistan in UAE
When: The one-off Test starts on Friday, May 11
What time: Each day’s play is scheduled to start at 2pm UAE time.
TV: The match will be broadcast on OSN Sports Cricket HD. Subscribers to the channel can also stream the action live on OSN Play.
Russia's Muslim Heartlands
Dominic Rubin, Oxford
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
How Filipinos in the UAE invest
A recent survey of 10,000 Filipino expatriates in the UAE found that 82 per cent have plans to invest, primarily in property. This is significantly higher than the 2014 poll showing only two out of 10 Filipinos planned to invest.
Fifty-five percent said they plan to invest in property, according to the poll conducted by the New Perspective Media Group, organiser of the Philippine Property and Investment Exhibition. Acquiring a franchised business or starting up a small business was preferred by 25 per cent and 15 per cent said they will invest in mutual funds. The rest said they are keen to invest in insurance (3 per cent) and gold (2 per cent).
Of the 5,500 respondents who preferred property as their primary investment, 54 per cent said they plan to make the purchase within the next year. Manila was the top location, preferred by 53 per cent.
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Defence review at a glance
• Increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 but given “turbulent times it may be necessary to go faster”
• Prioritise a shift towards working with AI and autonomous systems
• Invest in the resilience of military space systems.
• Number of active reserves should be increased by 20%
• More F-35 fighter jets required in the next decade
• New “hybrid Navy” with AUKUS submarines and autonomous vessels
Teaching in coronavirus times
Our legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW
Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman
Director: Jesse Armstrong
Rating: 3.5/5
