4,000-year-old beer receipt reveals how ancient people drank

A clay tablet, hidden away in museum archives for decades, has revealed a remarkable story of daily life in ancient Mesopotamia. Researchers have deciphered a 4,000-year-old cuneiform tablet that functioned as a beer receipt, providing rare insight into how one of the world’s oldest civilizations produced, distributed and valued one of humanity’s oldest drinks.The discovery is part of the “Hidden Treasures” project, a cooperation between the University of Copenhagen and the National Museum of Denmark, the university said. The project will analyze, recognize and digitize ancient cuneiform texts that have been largely unstudied for years, but are preserved in museum collections.One of the artifacts, a tablet (NMC 7962) that detailed beer deliveries, was particularly noteworthy for its novel