Did Ancient Mesopotamia Really Have Takeout Windows?

Millennia ago, in the Fertile Crescent, the land nestled between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in what is now present-day Iran, the ancient Mesopotamian civilization of Sumer arose. Sumerians developed what is the oldest known example of written language, as well as art, and especially architecture that has survived into the 21st century (with the help of some excavation). One such structure uncovered in Godin Tepe, an archaeological site within the boundaries of ancient Sumer, included a very curious feature: What looks to modern eyes like two "takeout" windows.

Hilary Gopnik, author and lecturer at Emory University, posited that these windows could very well have been used to serve up food and beverages to hungry and thirsty customers on the go. As the windows were not a common construction in this part of the world at that time (about 3,200 B.C.), they certainly piqued archaeologists' interest. Inside the structure, beyond the windows, they found remnants of food, as well as bowls with sloped rims, evidence that they were used to drink out of. 

You're probably picturing at this point an ancient McDonald's, where aproned workers roasted meats and poured beer, while another set of employees manned the windows, handing out their wares to passersby with enough coin (or something like a Roman thermopolium, the ancient origin of fast food). And so it might have been, except for the fact that along with evidence of food and beverage in the structure, they also found ancient ammunition.

Yes, over 1,500 clay bullets were also discovered within, leading one expert to suggest that the building was actually used for military purposes. Perhaps soldiers could pick up their stew, bread, and beer rations in one window, and get their ammo at another, as Virginia Badler, an archaeologist from the University of Toronto, proposed. So the windows may not have been open to the public, in the way that fast food drive-thrus are today, but only for a more specific group of people: Sumerian soldiers. (Of course, the bullets were also used for hunting, so it's also possible that the takeout scenario was true, and they sold bullets along with food, like an ancient one-stop shop.)

A team of archaeologists from both the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Pisa uncovered a structure from about the same time (give or take a few hundred years), in a different part of Sumer, the city of Lagash. This building is believed to be a tavern, which, while an exciting discovery on its own, could also lend some insight into Mesopotamian middle-class lifestyles and activities (of which there is little known, especially compared to upper classes and royalty).

The remains include a kitchen, which features both an oven and an ancient refrigeration system (maybe they served up a historical forebear to ice cream from it?), as well as benches where the diners would have sat. They also found over 100 bowls, some with traces of the food that was served up to hungry customers, including fish and meat, as well as the beer that they drank. (Could it have come from the 5,000-year-old Egyptian brewery discovered in 2021? Highly unlikely, but still cool to think about!) It paints a fascinating picture of what life would have been like for everyday Sumerians in one of the largest cities at the time (both in Sumer and the world), as they gathered for dinner, and possibly talked about local politics or religion, all while enjoying a cup of beer.