5,000-year-old beer-making vessels found in Tel Aviv

Fragments of pottery used to make beer by the ancient Egyptians has been found at a construction site in Tel Aviv.

Barkan and his colleagues found hundreds of pottery fragments, including broken pieces of large ceramic basins traditionally used to prepare beer — a staple of the Egyptian diet.

The clay that was used to create these basins had been mixed with straw or other organic materials as strengthening agents. This method wasn’t used in the local pottery industry in Israel, but straw-tempered vessels have been found before at other Egyptian sites — notably, the Egyptian administrative building that was excavated at En Besor in southern Israel, Barkan explained.

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Story: Megan Gannon, LiveScience | Photo: Yoli Shwartz, Israel Antiquities Authority