Ancient Egyptian Beer Kegs Excavated in Tel Aviv

Egyptian Sphinx

It turns out college kids aren’t the only ones with a fondness for kegs. The Daily Mail reports that ancient stone vessels once containing fruit-flavored brew have been unearthed in Tel Aviv, Israel. Fragments of pottery shards from ceramic basins made in the Egyptian tradition were found in seventeen pits dating back to the Early Bronze Age (3,500 to 3, 000 BC). The pits were most likely used to store produce notes Diego Barkan of the Israeli Antiquities Authority.

This “beer discovery” offers evidence of an Egyptian occupation in the center of Tel Aviv 5,000 years ago. Dr. Barken described the discovery as “the northernmost evidence we have of an Egyptian presence in the early Bronze Age.”

Beer, which was fermented in the hot African sun, was the most popular drink in ancient Egypt, and everyone—young and old, royalty and peasants—drank it. In short, beer was cleaner than the water from the river, which was often polluted. [Daily Mail] [Photo: Flickr.com/isawnyu]