Original subtitles

[narrator] A trove of artifacts in the Persian Gulf disrupts

the established history of early human migration.

The oldest date back more than two 200,000 years.

Why did these early humans choose to come here?

And how did they survive?

On the edge of the unforgiving Gobi Desert,

an abandoned fortress is unearthed, along with

an arsenal of weapons.

There are crossbows made of copper, bronze, and iron,

sword guards, knives.

This place seems to have been armed to the teeth.

But if this was a military fortress, who built it and why?

Near the Valley of Elah, where David is said to have

slain Goliath, a strange stone is spotted by a young hiker.

She picked it up and told her family it looked like

it had teeth. This was no ordinary stone.

Ancient lost cities.

Forgotten treasures.

Mysterious structures.

As new technology uncovers remarkable tales hidden beneath

the deserts of the world, the secrets in the sand

will finally be revealed.

The emirate of Sharjah extends across the northwestern

United Arab Emirates,

stretching east away from the Persian Gulf.

Like much of the UAE, Sharjah is dominated

by incredibly hot weather.

In the summer, the temperatures average around

100 degrees Fahrenheit, and the climate is extremely

dry, with only about eight rainy days per year.

Despite the inhospitable climate, people have been

living and thriving in the area for millennia.

Over the years, Sharjah has become renowned amongst

archaeologists for its Iron and Bronze Age

tombs and settlements.

About 40 miles inland from the Persian Gulf is

the Jebel Faya site.

It's located on a limestone hill which forms part of

the Al Hajar Mountains.

At its northeastern end, there's this prominent

rock shelter, which has turned out to be an archaeological

treasure trove.

A team of archaeologists is excavating the rock shelter

site when they uncover something unexpected.

There's an assemblage of stone tools primarily made up of

long flakes carefully shaped with sharp, parallel edges.

The craftsmanship necessary to produce these tools tells us

they had to have been made by early humans.

But why were these tools left here, abandoned

in the rock shelter?

The emergence of stone tools during the Paleolithic era came

along with a whole host of cultural changes for

anatomically modern humans.

Around the Middle Paleolithic era, Homo Sapiens started to

develop more sophisticated shelters.

And that is thought to have led to advances in art,

in sculpture.

It's even been hypothesized that this accelerated

the evolution of human rituals.

[Alison] We can't be sure exactly what these rituals were

or what purpose they served, but there are certain clues.

For instance, looking at many cave paintings, we can see

large animals and hunting scenes, which could mean that

the artworks were created as a way to bring luck to a group

of outgoing hunters.

Similarly, small sculptures might have been made to carry

around as a kind of talisman.

But some of the most convincing evidence of Paleolithic rituals

comes from burials.

[Anthony] One of the most impressive Stone Age tombs

comes from Sunghir, just over 100 miles from Moscow.

This is where archaeologists uncovered three graves

belonging to an adult man and two juveniles who had been

covered with thousands of ivory beads and red ochre.

As well as the ornaments, the younger two were buried

with over a dozen ivory spears, daggers, and throwing javelins.

[Anthea] We don't know why these weapons were left behind.

They may have been a way to honor the dead.

Or they could even indicate these ancient people had

a belief in the afterlife and hoped the offerings would

travel with their loved ones.

But their presence begs the question,

could the blades found at the Jebel Faya site have also

served some ritual function?

Could this have been a memorial of some sort?

The absence of certain clues from the site in Sharjah

only raises more questions.

With so little else to work with, the tools are the only

real clues as to who lived here and how the shelter was used.

But they actually tell us a lot.

For example, many of these sharp blades were produced

using a method called the Levallois technique.

Unlike earlier stone technology,

the Levallois technique showed a high level

of intentional design.

[Anthony] Rather than just randomly chipping bits of rock,

the Levallois technique involved carefully preparing

a large stone called a core.

[whacking]

Once the core was properly sharpened and curved,

one large flake would be chipped away from its center.

This final flake was flat on one side

and had incredibly sharp cutting edges.

[Anthea] Producing Levallois blades left a lot of debris,

from removing the outer layers of larger rocks

to chipping away the final product.

We can see traces of all these different steps and the debris

at Jebel Faya, which tells us that this rock shelter was

likely used as a center for blade production, kind of

like a workshop.

The sophistication of these tools reveals crucial

information about where these ancient Homo Sapiens came from.

[Dan] The Levallois technique most likely originated

in East Africa and actually predates Homo Sapiens.

The oldest known examples of that technique come from

a sedimentary sequence called the Kapthurin Formation

in Kenya and are more than 400,000 years old.

Over the course of millennia, Homo Sapiens adopted

this technique and carried it with them

as they began to migrate out of Africa.

So it's likely the people who set up shop

in the Jebel Faya shelter were among these

early human migrants.

The team conducts further analysis, using optically

stimulated luminescence to date the objects.

Optically stimulated luminescence, or OSL,

measures the natural radiation in various minerals to find out

when a sample was last exposed to sunlight.

The results in this case demonstrated that these tools

date back roughly 80,000 years.

This means that Jebel Faya contains the oldest known

examples of systematic blade production

in the entire Arabian Peninsula.

And not only that, the stone tools aren't even

the oldest evidence of human occupation found here.

[Anthea] The oldest assemblages at Jebel Faya date back

more than 200,000 years.

This challenges mainstream interpretations

of early human history,

which often placed the main migrations of humans

out of Africa between 70,000 and 50,000 years ago.

But this prompts the question,

why did these early humans choose to come here?

And how did they survive?

Critical insight into the world of these ancient humans

comes from a different rock formation called

the Al Hoota Cave in Oman.

[Dan] Today, huge swaths of the Arabian Peninsula are

covered by desert.

But tens of thousands of years ago,

it looked really different.

Inside the Al Hoota Cave, there are these stalagmites,

which only form when rainwater seeps through the ground

and drips down gradually,

building up into these tall mineral deposits.

Samples taken from the cave show that between

82,000 and 78,000 years ago, the stalagmites experienced

this period of rapid growth, and that suggests more water,

which suggests a wetter climate.

Looking back over tens of thousands of years,

we find evidence of streams and rivers carving their way

through the region, leaving distinct channels

in the desert landscape to this day.

This abundance of water would have been invaluable

for early human migrants

and may well have attracted them here as they followed

available water resources into new territory.

The absence of any human remains at the Jebel Faya site

tells us that these early humans may not have stayed

in the area long before moving on.

But even so, they went to the trouble of setting up

a fairly sophisticated tool production system.

This shows that these blades were very important,

but what were they being used for?

The search for answers invites us to imagine the world

from the perspectives of these ancient travelers.

[Anthea] When Homo Sapiens began to migrate across new continents,

they faced a world full of danger.

Not only were they gonna have to hunt to survive,

they may well have had to defend themselves against

attacks from hyenas, cave cats, and even wolves.

On top of the dangerous carnivores,

these early modern humans

also faced competition with their cousins,

the Neanderthals.

Neanderthals are thought to have evolved mostly outside

of Africa, spreading throughout Europe hundreds of thousands

of years before Homo Sapiens ever got there.

For a long time, they just dominated

those landscapes.

[Alison] As early modern humans began to cross paths

with Neanderthals, they relied on their stone technology

to help them compete for resources.

It was several thousand years before Homo Sapiens eventually

outcompeted Neanderthals.

Thanks in large part to their advanced tools

like the ones discovered in the rock shelter at Jebel Faya.

Layer by layer, the excavations at Jebel Faya

continue to reveal traces of our earliest modern ancestors

and their ancient migration routes,

long hidden beneath the sand, waiting to be discovered.

Bayankhongor province stretches over 40,000 square miles

across southwestern Mongolia.

The province lies northwest of the Gobi Desert,

one of the largest deserts in the world.

Unlike many sandy deserts,

the Gobi is characterized as a winter desert

because of its extreme weather.

The summers are blisteringly hot,

well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

But the winters are the polar opposite, often plunging down

to minus 40 degrees.

That harsh climate has a huge impact on Bayankhongor.

Like the Gobi, the province is incredibly dry and endures

these long, frigid winters.

But as you head north toward the foothills

of the Khangai Mountains, the landscape starts to shift.

It becomes less sandy and more rocky, opening up

into these vast plains.

A team of archaeologists is working in the northwestern

district of Bayanbulag when they unearth a surprise.

They found the remains of an old structure,

specifically two massive walls made of rammed earth.

It's an ancient building technique that involves

compacting damp soil and clay until it becomes

extremely dense.

These walls were incredibly durable, well-insulated,

and even fireproof.

There are several chambers associated with the walls,

which look like barracks or some kind of bunkers.

And inside are all kinds of weapons.

There are crossbows made of copper, bronze, and iron,

sword guards, knives,

and pieces of iron armor.

But if this was a military fortress,

who built it and why?

The answers may lie in the pages

of one of the most important historical documents ever written,

a record known

as the Shiji.

It's difficult to overstate the importance of the Shiji,

which is also known as

the "Records of the Grand Historian of China."

It was written more than 2,000 years ago

by a man named Sima Qian,

who served as a Grand Historian to the Emperor Wudi.

[Dan] Wudi was the seventh emperor of the Han Dynasty

and one of the most influential.

Under his reign, the Han Dynasty dramatically

expanded its influence and developed a strong,

centralized state.

Before the Shiji existed, independent states would

chronicle their own histories, which could often be confusing

and conflict with one another.

This was the first time a historian

took the time to sift through these accounts

and organize them into a coherent structure.

This process took Sima Qian almost two decades.

And by the time he had finished the Shiji, it covered roughly

2,000 years of Chinese history.

In the record, there are references to a military

structure built in southern Mongolia

during the Han Dynasty, around 104 BCE.

The fortress was called Shouxiangcheng,

which roughly translates to,

"Fortification for receiving surrender."

Its exact location has been debated for centuries,

but the discovery at Bayanbulag seems to fit the profile.

Could these be the ruins of the very same fortress?

The archaeologists working at the Bayanbulag site

come upon a second, far more chilling discovery.

[sinister music plays]

The team was digging in a second pit,

close to the fortress,

when they began to notice bones sticking out of the earth.

But this wasn't just one body.

As they started to excavate the skeletons,

they realized what they were looking at was a mass grave.

The skeletons are tightly mixed together,

and they're hard to disentangle.

But based on the number of skulls,

it looks like there are at least 17 individuals buried here.

The clay surrounding the bodies preserved their positions,

and it seems as though many were kneeling

when they were killed.

One of the victims appeared to have been laying down,

attempting to cover or defend himself with his hands

when his legs and arms were cut off.

[Anthony] All of the skeletons show signs of dismemberment

or amputation, and that's not all.

The bones also bear the scars of sharp and blunt force trauma,

painting a picture of a group that died

an exceptionally violent death.

But who were they?

The long-forgotten grave at the Bayanbulag site

isn't the only astonishing burial in the region.

Just over 200 miles northeast of Bayanbulag,

in the Undur-Ulaan district of Arkhangai Province,

archaeologists discovered the remains of another

extraordinary resting place, known today as Gol Mod II.

[Alison] The Gol Mod II site isn't so much a grave as a necropolis.

Over the years, roughly 400 graves

have been uncovered here.

They are carefully arranged, with the largest and grandest

elite tombs surrounded by smaller satellite burials,

which suggest a clear social hierarchy.

Inside the elite tombs, there were elaborate

grave goods, including gold and silver ornaments,

silk, and impressive felt rugs.

Gol Mod II is one of 10 enormous necropolises

scattered across Mongolia and Russia.

These huge complexes belonged to an ancient civilization

known as the Xiongnu.

They were a nomadic people who dominated

the Eurasian steppe for over 500 years.

They were actually a confederacy of nomadic tribes,

but they banded together to fight against

the Chinese who were expanding from the south.

The Xiongnu were formidable fighters,

both expert horseback riders and archers.

They formed armies of up to 300,000 mounted warriors,

strong enough to pose an existential threat

to China's northern borders.

The Xiongnu rose in power

roughly alongside the Han Dynasty,

and the two kingdoms went on to fight a series of wars

over the course of two centuries,

from about 133 BCE to 89 CE.

During Emperor Rudy's reign, the tensions between

the Han and Xiongnu escalated sharply.

The Han military began to build more infrastructure than ever

to fight against the Xiongnu's nomadic armies.

According to the Shiji, one of these fortresses

was the Shouxiangcheng.

[Alison] Based on its location, the Bayanbulag Fortress may well

be the Shouxiangcheng,

built to defend Han territory from incoming Xiongnu attacks.

The mass grave could well be the result

of one of these clashes.

But one question remains --

Which side do these bodies belong to?

The archaeologists working in Bayanbulag began to spot

clues that could point to where these soldiers came from.

[Dan] Rather than digging a new grave for these bodies,

it looks like the people burying them took advantage

of a hole that was already available.

The pit they were found in was a mine beforehand,

and it was only repurposed as a grave after the massacre.

So it definitely seems like an undignified resting place.

Combine that with the level of violence inflicted

on the victims, and you can see this hypothesis that maybe

these were the bodies of enemy soldiers

who had been taken prisoner.

[Amma] But other clues point to a different possibility.

Alongside the bodies, the team discovered

other objects, including shards of Han-style pottery,

an iron halberd, and a clay seal with the mark

of a Han official.

These artifacts suggest

that these men weren't Xiongnu soldiers

taken to the fortress,

but actually Han soldiers killed near their own fortress

and buried next to it.

To confirm the identities of these forgotten soldiers,

the archaeologists gather forensic evidence

from the mass burial for testing.

[Anthony] Using samples pulled from the bones and teeth,

they confirm that these skeletons all belonged

to men of military age,

between 20 and 50 years old.

These samples were then compared to a set of modern

East Asian populations, which established

that the individuals were genetically closer

to Han descendants than any other group.

This single discovery sheds new light on the chaos of

the burial itself.

It's possible that the Xiongnu riders managed to lay siege

to the fortress, successfully attacking

and killing some of the men stationed there.

These deaths were intentionally violent.

At the time, death by dismemberment was considered

the most shameful way to die, and the Xiongnu appeared

to have inflicted as much shame on their victims as possible.

[Dan] But that isn't the end of the story.

Once these Han soldiers had been killed,

their comrades actually gathered their dismembered bodies,

collecting the pieces of severed arms and legs

to be buried all together.

Chinese beliefs at the time, like those in a lot of

other cultures even today, dictate that bodies should be

buried whole to rest peacefully in the afterlife.

So this gesture might have meant a great deal.

The Bayanbulag Fortress remains the only example

of a mass grave from the Han-Xiongnu Wars,

an enduring reminder of a long forgotten conflict between

two of Asia's most powerful ancient civilizations.

Located between the Judean Mountains

and the Mediterranean coast,

Israel's Shephelah region runs roughly 35 miles long

and eight miles wide.

Shephelah is a transition zone between the highlands

of Jerusalem and Hebron and the coastal plain.

It's made up of gently rolling hills and sandy plateaus,

and it has a varied semi-arid climate.

So while it can get cool in the winter,

the summer months are dry and hot,

and it receives between just 10

and 20 inches of rain all year.

Archaeologists have found evidence of human habitation

in Shephelah going back as far as 3,500 years

to the Bronze Age.

That was followed by centuries

of rising and falling populations,

including a strong Canaanite enclave

of over 50,000 settlers.

And like much of the surrounding area,

the region continued to be populated

during the Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine periods.

But the lowlands of Shephelah are best known for being

the site of the ancient city of Tel Azekah,

which played a prominent role in several biblical texts,

including the battle between David and Goliath.

After the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 587 BCE,

Tel Azekah was one of only two fortified cities that remained.

And during the Hasmonean dynasty,

from 140 to 116 BCE,

a second fortress was built

by King John Hyrcanus,

the remains of which can still be seen today.

Despite this long history of occupation and settlement,

Tel Azekah and its surroundings were eventually abandoned

until the late 1800s

when it was rediscovered by British archaeologists,

making it one of the first biblical sites

ever excavated in Israel.

A family is out for a hike in the Shephelah foothills

when they make an incredible discovery.

They were walking along a sandy dirt trail

when a small rock caught the attention

of the young daughter.

She picked it up and told her family it looked like

it had teeth, which was probably the first indication

that this was no ordinary stone.

When they brushed the residual sand and dirt away,

they saw that what looked like teeth marks were

intricate markings,

the engravings of a beautifully-crafted

amulet or talisman.

But where did it come from, and how long has it been here?

A family is out for a hike

when they make an incredible discovery.

It wouldn't be the first time a young explorer stumbled upon

an ancient artifact in Israel.

[Teddy] A 13-year-old boy was on a hike

with his family close to Khirbet Shalala,

an archaeological site near Mount Carmel in Haifa.

The boy picked up what he thought was a rusty,

old metal bolt.

It was round, green, and slightly corroded.

But a closer look revealed it was a bronze ring

with an engraving of a human figure holding a spear

like a warrior.

[Anthea] When the family turned it over

to the Israel Antiquities Authority,

they identified the ring as being nearly 2,000 years old,

from the late Roman period.

The engraving was the image of Minerva,

the Roman goddess of wisdom and war,

known to the Greeks as Athena.

[Anthony] The exact provenance of the ring remained a mystery,

but several intriguing possibilities were considered.

It might have belonged to a woman

who lived on a farm on Khirbet Shalala,

or a worker at the nearby rock quarry.

Or it may have been used as an offering

at one of the many burial sites close by.

[Alison] Depictions of Minerva were extremely popular during

the Roman Empire, but not many have been recovered

in present-day Israel.

So is it possible the amulet in the Shephelah foothills was

from around the same era?

The amulet is tested to determine its age

with surprising results.

It's from roughly 1800 BCE, corresponding

to the Middle Bronze Age, which is almost two millennia

before the Roman Empire expanded

into what's known as the Southern Levant.

[Anthea] The people who lived in the Southern Levant during

the Bronze Age were referred to in ancient biblical text

as the Canaanites, who likely were descendants

of various nomadic Neolithic tribes.

And although they lived in different city-states,

including the city of Azekah, the Canaanites were culturally

and genetically very similar.

Much of what we know about the Canaanites comes from

records left by the people they encountered.

Some of the most detailed surviving records come from

the Hebrew Bible, and additional information

comes from artifacts recovered from archaeological sites

where the Canaanites are thought to have lived.

A recently-discovered Canaanite artifact points

to a possible origin story for the Shephelah amulet.

Once again, the discovery was made by a junior archaeologist.

In this case, a seven-year-old boy

who was exploring a section of Tel Rehov in the Jordan Valley

with his father and a group of friends.

The boy was climbing an archaeological mound

when he came across a stone that had shifted,

and he saw the image of a person covered in dirt.

When he brushed away the soil,

the stone turned out to be a clay figurine

in the shape of a woman.

Likely created by pressing soft clay into a mold.

It was identified as being roughly 3,400 years old

and was typical of Canaanite artifacts

from the 15th to the 13th century BCE.

It was believed the figurine belonged to one

of the residents of the ancient city of Rehov,

and that the figure depicted was either that of a real

flesh-and-blood woman

or a representation of the fertility goddess Astarte,

referenced in several Canaanite sources

as well as in the Bible.

So given that the figurine's unique design helped place it

both historically and geographically,

maybe the key to determining the amulet's origin might be

found in its engravings.

A close examination of the amulet's intricate design

leads to a critical clue.

The flat side of the stone has a beautifully rendered

engraving of a Scarab,

which has origins going back to ancient Egypt.

Scarab beetles, or dung beetles,

lay their eggs in balls of dung

from which a new generation emerges.

The Egyptians saw this as a powerful symbol

of rebirth

and an incarnation of their sun god, Khepri.

A beetle rolling a ball of dung was associated with Khepri

rolling the disc of the sun across the celestial universe.

[Anthea] Scarab imagery appeared in many different forms

in ancient Egypt.

As amulets, a Scarab beetle could be made from

precious metals like gold and faience.

They were worn as pins or jewelry for protection

and to ensure a safe passage into the afterlife.

A Scarab talisman was frequently placed on the hearts

of mummies as a symbol of eternal life.

The Scarab also appeared in hieroglyphic form

on the walls of Egyptian tombs and burial sites.

So, if the discovered amulet features imagery

with Egyptian roots,

is it possible that Egypt had some kind of cultural

or religious influence over the Canaanites?

The discovery of a Canaanite temple reveals the most likely

explanation for the Shephelah Scarab.

[Teddy] At the very top of the ancient city of Azekah, the ruins of

a temple that appeared to have been built to greet

the rising sun were discovered.

The Late Bronze Age compound features an open-air sanctuary

with a stone-paved platform that offered a spectacular

eastward view of the Valley of Elah,

the setting of the duel between David and Goliath.

[Anthea] While worship of the sun and various sun gods has been

a feature of Egyptian spiritual life throughout

its long history, it was inside the temple walls

where the biggest collection of evidence was found.

Several of the temple's chambers contained

cultic objects that blended Egyptian and Canaanite elements,

including a bronze statue of a Canaanite storm god

and an amulet made from a mineral unavailable

in Canaan, which would have been imported from Egypt.

[Anthony] The amulet's back was covered with hieroglyphs,

while the front depicted a triad of Egyptian deities,

the sun god Ra,

the lord of war and mischief, Seth,

and the sky goddess Hathor.

Taken together, the findings suggest a strong

influence of ancient Egyptian culture on Canaanite

religious practices.

[Alison] And this is in line with the historical record.

Canaanites, like others in the region,

were fascinated by many aspects of Egyptian culture.

They often imported or imitated their food, clothing,

and even luxury items such as jewelry and personal talismans,

like the one found on the Shephelah hiking trail.

Plucked from thousands,

a single stone reveals just one

of the many hidden stories buried in the former land

of Judea.

Discoveries like the Shephelah amulet

strengthen our understanding of the ancient connection

between the Egyptian and Canaanite civilizations.

With a population of over half a million,

Iraq's bustling city of Nasiriyah lies

on the lower Euphrates River,

around 225 miles south of Baghdad.

Founded in the late 18th century

by a tribal confederation called the Muntafiq,

Nasiriyah's hostile climate did not stop the city

from growing into an important hub

for transportation and industry.

But the history of the surrounding area

goes back much further,

over 5,000 years.

As the location of the ancient city of Lagash.

Lagash is known for being one of the first urban centers

of the Sumerian civilization of Iraq,

what was then called Mesopotamia

between the 6th and 5th millennium BCE.

Today, it's one of the largest archaeological sites

in the region,

and its excavations have provided

critical insights into the Sumerian people.

A team of archaeologists is working at Lagash

when they make a rare discovery.

In the southern half of the site,

they noticed traces of waste material

from the manufacturing of ceramics and pottery.

And when they continued to dig beneath the elevated sections

of the sandy plateau, they unearthed a large,

square trench containing six kilns

for producing ceramics,

all right next to one another.

The lower half of the kilns had oval pits made

from baked mud brick.

No upper portions remained, but it was determined

that the tops were likely domed

and made from the same mud and clay that lined them.

Just west of the kiln pits was an open space

with benches and a table,

most likely used by the ceramic makers.

The discovery of one kiln in Lagash is not unusual

in the context of a domestic dwelling.

In fact, in a nearby open square,

a kitchen space had already been excavated

to reveal clay jar stoppers,

a grinding stone and a toilet, several rooms over.

But what makes this find so compelling is

the six kilns together,

which suggests an organized and concentrated approach

to ceramic production.

Is it possible the kiln trench is just part of a larger

industrial complex?

For most of the third millennium,

Lagash was one of the largest cities

in all of southern Mesopotamia.

Its strategic location between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers

was the key to its growth as a major political and religious

capital of Sumer.

In the early dynastic period, 2900 BCE to 2350 BCE,

the rulers of Lagash called themselves kings.

Technically, that was a bit of an exaggeration because

this city-state was never officially included

in the Sumerian kingship.

Not surprisingly, most of the recovered artifacts

and architecture of Lagash have focused on the city's powerful

rulers and elites.

This has left many questions about the lives of the often

overlooked middle-class citizens who made up most

of the population of Lagash and lived in the section

of the city where the kilns were discovered.

An expanded survey of the area surrounding the kiln site

leads to surprising results.

There was a large courtyard space nearby,

but it was difficult to excavate,

having already been compromised by exposure.

So, a new cutting-edge technique called

microstratigraphic sampling was applied,

where high-tech tools are used

to uncover the surface in thin sections,

one by one.

[Teddy] The approach paid off.

Just 19 inches below the initial surface,

there was another kitchen area,

including an oven, storage vessels for food,

and more benches and tables,

dating to roughly 2,700 BC.

But the most curious thing was the sheer number of benches

and the size of the eating area.

This was no single-dwelling dining room.

It was an open-air public space

dedicated to feeding many people at one sitting.

So was this some 5,000-year-old Sumerian food court or tavern

dedicated to feeding the hungry masses of Lagash?

As the excavation of the Legash site continues,

It wouldn't be the first time that an archaeological dig

lead to the discovery of what was thought to be

an ancient tavern.

If you want a really good look at the dining habits

of the Romans, look no further than the excavated remains

of a large communal space in Lattes, France.

This place is more recent.

It dates to about 75 BCE, but it probably reflects

what life was like in Lagash, too.

The French site includes these three indoor gristmills,

and three ovens for baking flatbread.

So, it was initially believed that these were the remains

of a bakery.

But further digging revealed the presence of several benches

and a charcoal-burning hearth,

along with pieces of large bowls and platters.

Suddenly, it looked less like a takeout bakery and more

like a dining establishment where the locals could sit

and share a meal.

The findings also provided insight into the foods

that would have been featured on the menu,

since bones from fish, sheep, and cattle were also found

on the site.

[Teddy] The discovery cast a critical light

on the history of the world's earliest restaurants.

According to a recent study, the first establishments

to sell food and drinks to the public began to emerge

around 1550 CE in Constantinople.

If it could be proven that this 2,000-year-old Roman tavern was

a commercial enterprise,

then it would challenge the previous record.

However, the absence of any coins from the period

at the site made it virtually impossible to verify.

Maybe the discovery at Lagash would prove different.

As the excavation of the Lagash site continues,

compelling new evidence comes to light.

[Anthea] Across from where the oven was discovered,

there's a large, circular half-buried structure

containing a pot in layers of pottery shards.

This was identified as a zeer,

an underground cooling device,

similar to a refrigerator that was used to keep foods

and drinks cool.

There were also additional benches and shelves

found close to the oven.

Now, those shelves had collapsed,

but each one had four levels,

some of them stacked with conical bowls.

And in some of those bowls, you can still find

the remains of fish and other food.

But the biggest surprise was revealed when three levels

of a second building were discovered to the east

of the large kitchen area.

This building had an industrial-sized oven,

a large basin made from baked brick,

and several ceramic vats.

In other words,

all the necessary ingredients for a brewery.

There was even a recipe for beer found

on a cuneiform tablet.

[Teddy] So at this stage, it's safe to call the gathering place

a bona fide tavern.

There was a public courtyard with benches and tables,

a kitchen area with an oven, storage vessels for food,

and a refrigeration unit.

And of course, the brewery to the east.

And at roughly 4,800 years old, it would also be the oldest

known tavern in recorded history.

But was the ancient tavern also a business engaging in commerce

of some kind, or was it purely for social congregation?

A closer look at the city's growth pattern offers

an important clue.

The Sumerians in Lagash were so successful

at domesticating crops

that it led to a food surplus,

but it also led to the emergence of a new social class,

not directly involved in food production.

In this case, a middle class that had a sizable degree

of independence, that made decisions, that had both

agency and mobility.

[Dan] The presence of the tavern offers this snapshot

of a public gathering space where people could sit down,

have a pint of beer, and a little bit of fish stew.

This place suggests that the middle class didn't

necessarily have wealth, but they did have money.

Presumably, that's how they paid for their food here,

and also at the site in France.

[Amma] The middle class of Lagash eventually developed trades,

produced and exchanged goods,

and became artisans and craftsmen.

And one can easily imagine they went to the tavern

to unwind after a long day of work.

The initial discovery of the six kilns close by,

supports the image of a group of ceramicists

who were no doubt thirsty

after toiling over their hot kilns in the desert.

The incredible Tavern of Lagash is an important addition

to our understanding of the Sumerian civilization

and a challenge to many historical perspectives.

It suggests the lives of those who built the city were more

varied, nuanced, and social than previously believed.