This is the best summary I could come up with:

Eating out seems to have been as popular 5,000 years ago as it is today, with archaeologists in Iraq uncovering an ancient tavern dating back to 2,700 BCE.

The team then discovered the industrial-sized oven, a moisture-wicking ancient “fridge,” to keep food cool, and dozens of conical bowls, many containing fish remains, revealing the purpose of the courtyard to be an outdoor dining area.

“From various burning episodes and deposits of ash it left a sort of rainbow coloration in the soils and the interior is framed by these big bricks.”

It has since become an important archaeological site, with excavations restarting most recently in 2019 as part of a joint project between the Penn Museum, the University of Cambridge and the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage in Baghdad, using new techniques such as drone photography and genetic analysis.

Uncovering a tavern supports the perspective of Pittman and her team that society was not organized into just elites and enslaved people – the previous prevailing view – but included an ancient middle class.

“The fact that you have a public gathering place where people can sit down and have a pint and have their fish stew, they’re not laboring under the tyranny of kings,” Goodman said.

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