A 5,000 year old clay tablet was found where the ancient city of Uruk was located, which is in modern day Iraq. The unusual part of the tablet is that it shows that the workers were paid in beer. The tablet depicts a man eating from a bowl, which means rations followed by a conical vessel, which means beer. There are scratches which denotes the amount of beer the worker was entitled to. It is believed to be the oldest pay slip ever found. The oldest evidence of beer is from 7,000 years ago in what is Iran today. It was drunk using reed straws from a communal bowl.
The city of Uruk existed for five thousand years and the city is believed to have had 80,000 inhabitants. Many scientists believe that the communal act of beer drinking brought the citizens together. If that’s the case, I assume the city went defunct when they ran out of beer. I’ve been to many parties that suffered the same fate.
From The Daily Mail:
Beer is thought to have been a popular drink in Mesopotamia and perhaps could have helped to overcome problems with contaminated water that came with living in cities.
The clay tablet depicting the payment of beer to workers is thought to date to between 3100BC and 3000BC. It is currently being kept in the collection of the British Museum in London.
Clay tablets were made by engraving the symbols into the wet clay using a stylus before they were left in the sun to dry.
Archaeologists have also found evidence for workers in other ancient civilisations being paid in beer.
Workers building the pyramids in ancient Egypt for example received between four to five litres a day.
https://youtu.be/jFSew-_ictQ