Drinking from a straw is older than we think. And also, before they had more class: they used gold and silver straws of a meter long.
the custom of Drink beer is basically a social event: it’s more fun in a group. Drinking alone is boring, and that’s something they already understood our ancestors 5,000 years ago.
At Maykop kurgan, in Russia, an archaeological excavation of the Bronze Age, believe they have found oldest surviving beer drinking straws, as reported Gizmodo.
In 1897, the Russian archaeologist Nikolai Veselovsky discovered a burial of several bodies, and dozens of artifacts, dated between 3,700 and 2,900 BC.
One of these bodies had, next to his right hand, 8 fine tubes of gold and silver one meter long. Some of them showed, at the end of a tube, a piece with the figure of a bull.
At the time it was thought that it was some kind of ceremonial or professional scepter of great importance to the deceased, because he had been buried with them.
That’s how it stayed for a hundred years, until another archaeologist, Viktor Trifonov, decided to carry out a new investigation. Thanks to modern instruments, such as the microscope, he discovered something surprising.
Inside these gold and silver tubes were barley pellets, as well as fossilized cereal particles, and pollen grains from a lime tree. This is clear proof that They were used for drinking.
And since there was barley, it was most likely beer, since at that time it was made from barley.
Another conclusive proof is that the decoration in the shape of a bull acted as a filter or strainer. This seems to show that beer was drunk with straws, and the strainer filtered out impurities, which were common in beer at the time. Here you can see a drawing of how they were:
In total they found eight straws of gold and silver.
Along with the burial there was also a huge vessel that would allow up to 8 people to drink in a group, just the straws found.
Both the length of the straws and the height and size of the pot seem to fit perfectly, as seen in this drawing:
Although the tests are not 100% conclusive, the multiple indications seem to confirm that we are facing the oldest beer drinking straws in the world.
It is also an important demonstration that Drinking alcohol in a group is a social activity that was already practiced 5,000 years ago.
In that sense, we human beings have changed little.