A high-production brewery believed to be more than 5,000 years old has been uncovered by a team of archaeologists at a funerary site in southern Egypt, the tourism ministry said on Saturday.

The site containing several “units” consisting of about 40 earthenware pots arranged in two rows was uncovered at North Abydos, Sohag, by a joint Egyptian-American team, the ministry said in a statement on its Facebook page.

The brewery likely dates back to the era of King Narmer, it quoted the secretary general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, Mostafa Waziry, as saying, adding it believed the find to “be the oldest high-production brewery in the world”.

Narmer, who ruled more than 5,000 years ago, founded the First Dynasty and unified Upper and Lower Egypt.