What were people drinking 5,000 years ago in the southern Egyptian city of Abydos? We already knew locals were filling their cups with beer, as Abydos was home to a massive brewery at that time. But as we’ve recently learned, it seems there was another tipple on the beverage list.
On Oct. 1, an international archaeology team announced the extremely rare discovery of dozens of wine jars at the Um Al-Qaab archaeological site within Abydos, giving us an even clearer image of Bronze Age hospitality. (The excavation represents the combined efforts of the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, the Archaeological Institute in Cairo, the University of Viena, the University of Technology in Vienna and Lund University.)
Archaeologists discovered the jars while digging at the tomb of Merneith (aka Merit-neith), a royal consort of the pharaoh Djet in the First Dynasty period. Merneith later ruled Egypt as a regent during the reign of her young son, Den, around the year 2950 B.C., making her one of the earliest-known female rulers in recorded history. While historians debate the full extent of Merneith’s authority, researchers found inscriptions at Abydos that indicate she did, indeed, pull the levers of government. Now, about that wine …
“We found about 50 intact wine jars in one context and the fragments of hundreds of other wines,” Dr. E. Christiana Köhler, the excavation’s principal investigator and project director, told Wine Spectator via email. “Some of them were still sealed with ceramic lids and mud seals. The excavations are ongoing, and it is possible that we find more wine jars.”
If that wasn’t exciting enough, most of the jars still hold quantities of “well-preserved” grape pips and other residue. Per Köhler, while this wine probably came from vineyards within Egypt, chemical analysis is ongoing, so time may tell what type of wine this is. (It’s already been 5,000 years; what’s a few more?)
“It seems that [Queen Merneith] preferred wine for her afterlife,” Köhler explained. Notably, these jars and their contents are some of the oldest wine artifacts ever found. Not too surprisingly, given that Abydos was suds country, there were beer jars in the mudbrick-built tomb as well, though in fewer numbers. Archaeologists also found tombs of 41 of Merneith’s courtiers and servants.
What Is the Oldest Evidence of Wine?
While archaeologists and researchers are still working to uncover the mysteries of ancient wine, we do have a few glimmers of how far back people were drinking wine and what it looked like then. In 2023, scientists showed through genetic research that humans may have domesticated grapevines around 9000 B.C., about the same time they domesticated cereals. Previous findings, based on fragments of clay jars that appeared to contain grape or even wine residue, had indicated that origin date was about 8,000 years ago.
University of Mainz Prof. Peter Kupfer, who published Amber Shine and Black Dragon Pearls: The History of Chinese Wine Culture in 2020, theorizes that winemaking, as we know it today, started as a collaborative effort around 7000 B.C., between peoples in ancient China, the Fertile Crescent (today, the Middle East), the Caucuses and beyond. Wine and winemaking tips spread across the Eurasian continent, and today we have evidence of everything from a a 2,600-year-old wine press in Lebanon to undersea aging techniques in ancient Rome about 2,500 years ago.
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