29 October 2025 The Future is the Product of the Past

5,000-Year-Old public eating space with food still inside discovered in ancient Lagash

Archaeologists have unearthed the remains of a public eating space that’s nearly 5,000 years old in southern Iraq, the University of Pennsylvania announced last week.

However, what surprised the researchers most was the large “tavern” they uncovered, complete with benches, a type of clay refrigerator called a “zeer,” an oven, and the remains of storage vessels, many of which still contained food.

Holly Pittman, professor in the University of Pennsylvania’s History of Art department, curator of the Penn Museum’s Near East Section, and the Lagash project director, said, according to a UPenn press release, “It’s a public eating space dating to somewhere around 2700 BC. It’s partially open air, partially kitchen area.”

The find offers insight into the lives of everyday people who lived in a non-elite urban neighborhood in southwest Asia around 2700 B.C.E.

An area Penn researchers have studied since the 1930s when the Penn Museum teamed up with Leonard Woolley and the British Museum to excavate the important archaeological site of Ur about 30 miles to the southwest. In 2019, the latest round of Lagash excavations began, and despite a short pandemic-necessitated pause, the project has real momentum, with four field seasons now complete.



📣 Our WhatsApp channel is now LIVE! Stay up-to-date with the latest news and updates, just click here to follow us on WhatsApp and never miss a thing!!



To excavate most effectively, the researchers are employing cutting-edge methodologies, including drone photography and thermal imaging; magnetometry, which captures the magnetic intensity of buried features; and micro-stratigraphic sampling, a surgically precise type of excavation. To understand the city’s environmental context, they’ve also extracted sediment cores that reflect millennia of ecological development.

Aerial view of Lagash Ancient City excavation site. The closest trench shows the tavern with a type of clay refrigerator called a “zeer,” an oven, and benches. Photo: Lagash Archaeological Project
Aerial view of Lagash Ancient City excavation site. The closest trench shows the tavern with a type of clay refrigerator called a “zeer,” an oven, and benches. Photo: Lagash Archaeological Project

“At more than 450 hectares, Lagash was one of the largest sites in southern Iraq during the 3rd millennium,” Pittman says. “The site was of major political, economic, and religious importance. However, we also think that Lagash was a significant population center that had ready access to fertile land and people dedicated to intensive craft production. In that way the city might have been something like Trenton, as in ‘Trenton makes, the world takes,’ a capital city but also an important industrial one.”

“It’s not like old-time archaeology in Iraq,” says Zaid Alrawi, project manager for the Lagash project at the Penn Museum. “We’re not going after big mounds expecting to find an old temple. We use our techniques and then, based on scientific priority, go after what we think will yield important information to close knowledge gaps in the field.”

To investigate the public space just 19 inches below the surface, the archaeologists used a technique that involves excavating thin horizontal sections one by one. Discovering the tavern suggests that the society at Lagash included a middle class, in addition to enslaved individuals and elites.

“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,” says Reed Goodman, an archaeologist at the University of Pennsylvania. “Right there, there is already something that is giving us a much more colorful history of the city.”

Other discoveries made by the researchers at the site include a pottery-making area with six ceramic kilns, benches, and a table that was once used by the city’s early residents. In addition, they found a domestic dwelling with a kitchen and a bathroom.

University of Pennsylvania

Related Articles

Infinite Embrace: New research sheds light on Bronze Age family relationships that link Britain to Luxembourg

30 January 2024

30 January 2024

A new study of early Bronze Age examples from Luxembourg and Britain, led by researchers from the universities of Mainz...

Klazomenai, ceramic center of ancient period was found the first seal belonging to the city

20 November 2022

20 November 2022

A seal belonging to the city was found for the first time during excavations in the ancient city of Klazomenai...

Europe’s Oldest Blue Pigment Found in Stone Age Paint Box

30 September 2025

30 September 2025

Archaeologists in Germany have uncovered the earliest evidence of blue pigment ever used in Europe, rewriting our understanding of Stone...

Ancient Mosaics Unearthed in İznik Hint at Residence of Roman General

4 August 2025

4 August 2025

A recent archaeological breakthrough in the ancient city of İznik, formerly known as Nicaea, has unveiled richly decorated Roman mosaics...

A unique gold brooch talisman with inscriptions in Latin and Hebrew was found in the UK

19 February 2022

19 February 2022

A Medieval gold annular brooch with prayerful inscriptions has been discovered in the parish of Manningford in Wiltshire, in the...

An 8500-year-old wooden ladder remain was discovered at Çatalhöyük

12 April 2022

12 April 2022

Remains of the wooden ladder were discovered for the first time in Çatalhöyük, one of the best-preserved Neolithic settlements in...

New evidence pushes the origins of the Great Wall back by 300 years

19 February 2025

19 February 2025

Recently discovered evidence from the Changqing district of Jinan, located in East China’s Shandong Province, reveals that the origins of...

Exceptional Iron Age Artifacts Discovered at Celtic Necropolis in France

18 April 2025

18 April 2025

An archaeological excavation in Creuzier-le-Neuf, a small town located six miles north of Vichy, has unveiled a remarkable Celtic necropolis,...

Culinary Habits of Ancient Maltese

24 February 2021

24 February 2021

Pottery shards found at the ancient settlement were analyzed for fragments of organic residue and protein. The culinary habits of...

A Lynx Buried with Four Big Dogs in an Ancient Roman Well in Hungary

17 April 2024

17 April 2024

Archaeologists have discovered the skeleton of an adult male lynx accompanied by four big dogs in a Roman-era pit in...

Grain Barns dating back 6,000 years unearthed in China

15 December 2022

15 December 2022

Chinese archaeologists have revealed a cluster of 16 ancient granaries that traced back to the mid-late period of the Yangshao...

3,500-Year-Old Rice Discovery Marks Longest Early Ocean Journey

24 July 2025

24 July 2025

Breakthrough research reveals ancient rice remains in Guam, offering insight into early Austronesian culture and a remarkable 2,300-kilometer early ocean...

4,500-Year-Old ‘Gifted Graves’ Unearthed at Ikiztepe Mound in Northern Türkiye

25 October 2025

25 October 2025

Archaeologists working at the prehistoric site of Ikiztepe Mound in northern Türkiye have uncovered two extraordinary burials — one belonging...

New Type of Amphora Found in 5th-Century Roman Shipwreck

28 April 2024

28 April 2024

The first in-depth analysis of the cargo of a 4th-century Roman shipwreck found off the coast of Mallorca in 2019...

Stunning carved stone depicting a mystery naked horseman is discovered at the Roman fort of Vindolanda

30 June 2021

30 June 2021

Near Hadrian’s Wall in northern England, archaeologists discovered a carved sandstone slab portraying a naked horseman. During the annual excavations...