What a Mesopotamian beer receipt tells about ancient drinking culture
People were enjoying libations with coworkers long before the modern-day office soiree. Danish researchers potentially discovered the world’s oldest beer tab inscribed on a four-millenia-old clay tablet.
Editor's pick This post is part of hand-picked stories from across the web, curated by the editors of the Assyria Post.
“There are several texts at the National Museum of Denmark included in our volume that mention beer being used as payment to workers,” Dr. Troels Arbøll, from the University of Copenhagen, told the publication. “They are, therefore, administrative documents or receipts.”
Supplied by a man named “Ayalli,” the haul of giggle juice comprised 16 liters of “high-quality beer” and 55 liters of “ordinary beer.”
These party favors were reportedly slated to be divided among a coalition of workers, potentially for the ancient equivalent of a booze-fueled office bash.
This find might seem anachronistic, but Arbøll pointed out that beer “was presumably high in nutrition and considered an integral part of how these earliest urbanized populations lived.”
A new petition before the ACT Legislative Assembly is calling for the inclusion of Assyrian, Armenian and Greek genocide education in the territory’s school curriculum, as community groups intensify efforts to secure broader historical recognition.
A century after the National Museum of Denmark amassed clay tablets from the ancient Near East, researchers have fully analyzed and digitized them, revealing texts from anti-witchcraft rituals for Assyrian kings to beer receipts and dynastic lists mentioning Gilgamesh.
A farmer in Baghdida is growing a wide range of pepper varieties inside plastic greenhouses, part of an agricultural effort that community leaders say helps Nineveh Plain residents stay on their land.
Turkish journalist and writer Serdar Korucu's new book records a century-old journey from Seyfo in 1915 to the unknown murders of the 90s and today's hopes of returning through 38 different Assyrian voices from across the diaspora.
A new petition before the ACT Legislative Assembly is calling for the inclusion of Assyrian, Armenian and Greek genocide education in the territory’s school curriculum, as community groups intensify efforts to secure broader historical recognition.
In the fractured Byzantine world, Jacob Baradaeus walked unseen in beggar’s rags, defying imperial persecution. Through a hidden network of secret ordinations, he revived a dying Assyrian church to become the quiet force who preserved its faith, lineage, and future.
Ben Cost
