Why Was Workers’ Labor Paid In Beer Five Thousand Years Ago?
According to a Sumerian tablet from 3300 BC, workers in Mesopotamian civilizations were paid with beer. Yes, you read it right. With beer. The question is, why did they want to do something like this? So let’s have a look.
Located in the south of Iraq, this tablet corresponds to the period immediately after the invention of writing. Since our knowledge about this period is very limited, experts thought that this tablet was an important work in understanding the conditions and living habits of the period. And they were not mistaken. The shapes on the tablet symbolize the human head eating from a bowl. The bowls and other containers here represented the meal and beer. The beer itself is shown as wavy lines inside the jar. According to scientists, the tablet shows the amount of beer a worker will receive in response to his or her labor. Thanks to the records on the tablet, Mesopotamian civilizations could know who was paid and who was not.
You can check out the tablet from The British Museum’s website. I…
