Slender gold and silver tubes crafted during the Bronze Age are the world's oldest drinking straws, a new study finds.
Archaeologists found the 3-foot-long metal tubes in 1897 while excavating a burial mound known as a kurgan from the ancient Maikop culture in the northwestern Caucasus, which primarily includes modern-day Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of southern Russia. Until now, scientists couldn't decipher the tubes' purpose.The new research suggests that people would have used the tubes, some of which are attached to tiny bull figurines, to drink beer with buddies from a communal vessel.
Over the decades, various archaeologists wondered whether the tubes were scepters, poles for a canopy, or even a bundle of rods that fit into arrowheads. Other findings – for instance, that the ancient Sumerians drank beer through long reeds, including Queen Puabi, who was buried with long straws at the Royal Cemetery at Ur – show that communally sipping beer through long tubes was a favorite pastime.Three of eight silver perforated tips from the Maikop kurgan: a) enlarged images of the design and slits; b) the silver tips in their original position.