Having a night out to get some drinks with friends or dining outside the confines of the home appears to have already been popular 5,000 years ago after archaeologists in Iraq unearthed an ancient tavern that dates back to 2,700 BCE.
A tavern with an outdoor dining area, a room with benches, an oven, ancient food relics, and even a 5,000-year-old fridge were found by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania working in the ancient city of Lagash.
A picture taken on February 24, 2022, shows a view of Iraq's ancient city of Hatra in the northern region of al-Hadar, 105 kilometers south of Mosul, during a ceremony to unveil restored sculptures which were vandalized by militants of the Islamic State group. - The jihadists released video footage in 2015 of their destruction at Hatra in which they took guns and pick axes to the once extensive remains of what was one of the leading trade entrepots between the Roman and Parthian empires in the first and second centuries AD.
A Window Into Ancient Iraq
The discovery offers a window into the lives of common people who lived in this region of the world some 5,000 years ago.
The researchers have been studying this region ever since the 1930s when the Penn Museum collaborated with Leonard Woolley and the British Museum to excavate the rich archaeological site.
The researchers utilize cutting-edge techniques for excavation, such as magnetometry, which measures the magnetic intensity of underground structures, drone photography, thermal imaging, and magnetometry. They also employed micro-stratigraphic sampling to excavate with surgical precision.
The team retrieved sediment cores reflecting millennia of ecological history to understand the city's natural surroundings better.
"We're all completely committed to the collective success of this project," Holly Pitmann, the project's director, said in a statement.
"Iraq has suffered so profoundly for many years. I hope it will find stability and be able to enjoy and nurture its great and important antiquity. Our role is to help make that happen."
The Lagash City
One of the largest archaeological sites in southern Mesopotamia is the Lagash city, which is nearly three miles long from north to south and one mile wide, according to the research team.
The team recently worked with local drilling specialists to drill down to a depth of roughly 80 feet. Reaching such depths has produced tens of thousands of years' worth of environmental proxy data.
The data spanned the 2.5 million-year-old Pleistocene, followed by the Holocene.
This happened last fall when the team discovered the tavern. The Lagash Archaeological Project is excavating by microstratigraphic layers across a vast swath of swath that is similar to performing an extremely meticulous surgery.
Lagash is an ancient city that was part of a network of towns in Iraq. The team's efforts have so far provided windows into the old city's economics, politics, and natural resources. However, the team admits there is still much to revel in this rich archaeological site.
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