Sumerian Symbol

Early documentary evidence for the existence of brewing in the Ancient Near East comes from seals used for stamping designs on wet clay. One 6,000 year old seal, found at Tepe Gawra, north-west of Nineveh in what is now Iraq, shows two figures drinking beer through long reed straws. The seal was probably used for marking jars to indicate their contents (i.e., beer). The symbol for beer shown here is from a somewhat later clay tablet and represents a jar with pointed bottom and internal grooves. The grooves in such jars were likely designed to trap spent yeast and other sediments when the beer was decanted.