Archaeologists find 5,000-year-old tavern

there were restaurants in Iraq 5,000 years ago, the latest archaeological dig reveals.

Researchers in Lagash have discovered a pub with an open-air dining area 19 inches below the surface and a room with benches, an oven, ancient food remains and a 5,000-year-old refrigerator.

The open-air site was exposed to the environment," University of Pennsylvania archaeologist Reed Goodman told CNN, explaining that the yard was difficult to excavate.

Returning to the mysterious courtyard a few months later in the autumn of 2022, fieldwork leader Sarah Pizzimenti of the University of Pisa expanded the trench.

The team then discovered an industrial-sized oven, an antique "refrigerator" for cooling food and dozens of conical bowls, many containing fish remains, confirming the yard's use as an outdoor dining area.

goodman said the first feature discovered was a massive, magnificent oven:

The soil is iridescent in colour from various episodes of burning and ash deposits, and the interior is framed by these giant bricks.

Lagash, now Al-Hiba, was the oldest and greatest city in southern Mesopotamia, covering over two square miles from the fifth millennium to the middle of the second millennium BC.

The Penn Museum, Cambridge University and the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage in Baghdad have resumed excavations in 2019, using drone images and DNA analysis.

Holly Pittman, director of the archaeology project in Lagash and curator of the Penn State Museum's Middle East department, has focused on non-elite neighbourhoods to better understand ancient cities.

Pittman and her colleagues found a bar that supports their theory about the existence of a middle class in ancient society.

The fact that you have a place for social gatherings where people can sit and have a pint of beer and eat stew suggests that they don't work under the tyranny of kings," Goodman said. "Here's something that gives us a much more vivid history of the city.