Go With The Gusto - Sumerian BEER Tabs Decoded From Clay Tablets

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-15741799/Worlds-oldest-BEER-tab-Scientists-receipt.html

There's nothing quite like having a drink to celebrate payday – and
it turns out this tradition dates back thousands of years.

Scientists have discovered one of the earliest known beer tabs in
the National Museum of Denmark.

For over a century, the museum has housed a large collection
of inscribed tablets from the earliest civilisations of the
Middle East, written in languages that are now extinct.

Now, for the first time, experts have deciphered them and
discovered texts about magic, kings and alcohol transactions.

One, which dates back 4,000 years, represents a record of beer
being used as a form of payment in the ancient city of Umma,
in what is now southern Iraq. It shows beer in various quality
and quantities supplied by someone named 'Ayalli'.

. . .

   OK, strictly, 4000 years - probably the Akkadian
   empire, not Sumerian.

   The Iranians (Elamites) messed up the Sumerians and
   then the Akkadians pushed out the Elamites. Constant
   warfare in the region even then.

   Jericho greatly pre-dates Akkad and Sumer, signs of
   civ going back over 11,000 years, but Jericho is
   a city, an 'island', not an entire extended
   'civilization' like developed in Mesopotamia.

   In any case, clearly a well-developed well-documented
   commercial environment even that far back. Sumerian
   tablets suggest this organized, oft bureaucratic,
   system went back over a thousand years prior.

   Even earlier ? Nobody knows. No good standardized
   writing systems before Sumeria and much earlier
   and fired clay/pottery hadn't been invented to
   write permanent records upon. Anyway, civ=biz.