Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:

• Researchers have deciphered a collection of cuneiform writing from the earliest civilizations of the Near East.
• The analysis of extinct languages revealed writing on a range of topics including administration, daily life, and a list of kings.
• The texts also show an unexpected reliance on magic spells by the kings of Assyria.

A large collection of clay tablets from ancient Mesopotamia—some of which are more than 4,000 years old—has been sitting in a Danish museum for over a century. Many of the languages etched into the clay have long since gone extinct. But now, researchers have started deciphering them, finding odd tidbits about ancient magic spells and… well… beer tabs.

The tablets are part of Denmark’s National Museum collection, which includes cuneiform writings from the earliest civilizations of modern-day Iraq and Syria. A new project from the University of Copenhagen dubbed “Hidden Treasures: The National Museum’s Cuneiform Collection,” has digitized the tablets and begun analyzing and identifying the languages. Cuneiform—invented about 5,000 years ago and written with reeds that pressed symbols into wet clay—is credited with helping enable the development of complex societies, cities, bureaucracies, and literature.

Among the oldest examples of cuneiform writing are a group of tablets from the Syrian city of Hama, which was destroyed and plundered by Assyrian warriors in 720 B.C.E. Those nearly 3,000-year-old texts showcase magical incantations and medical treatments, and were left behind in what experts believe was a temple library.

Assyriologist Troels Pank Arbøll, who participated in the Hidden Treasures project, said in a statement from the University of Copenhagen that the Hama texts are entirely unique—virtually no other cuneiform texts on these subjects have been found from the region during the same period. The most peculiar text featured an anti-witchcraft ritual that, according to Arbøll, would have been chanted for Assyrian royalty who believed it would ward off misfortunes, such as political instability. The text chronicles a night-long ritual that included an exorcist reciting incantations and the burning of wax and clay figures.

Naturally, given the age of the tablets, kings are popular subjects of the writing thereupon. One text was a list of both mythical and historical kings that may have served as a school text, registering kings from the end of the third millennium B.C.E. Other tablets of the same type also mention the legendary King Gilgamesh from the famed Epic of Gilgamesh.

“That makes this regnal list one of the few relics we have that suggest Gilgamesh may have actually existed,” Arbøll said. “We had no idea we had a copy of that list here in Denmark. It is quite spectacular.”

There’s also plenty of bureaucratic correspondence, such as a tablet found at Tell Shemshara showing a local chief and an Assyrian king engaged in administrative discussions. Additionally, the ancient documents include records of daily interactions, such as commercial transactions and lists of goods and personnel.

“It is therefore not surprising,” Arbøll said, “that one of the tablets in the National Museum’s collection contains something as commonplace as a very old receipt for beer.”