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ANCIENT EGYPTIAN BEER
Beer was the favorite drink of the Ancient Egyptians. A special part of the royal kitchen in ancient Egypt was “the pure" — the brewery in which beer was prepared. Even the deceased in the Afterlife could not get on without beer any more than without bread. [Source: Adolph Erman, “Life in Ancient Egypt”, 1894]
Egyptians are regarded by some historians as the inventors of beer. Made from barley, Egyptians beer was thick and nutritious. The fermentation process added essential B vitamins and amino acids converted from yeast. It is said the Ancient Egyptians believed that one day Osiris, god of agriculture, made a decoction of barley that had germinated with the sacred waters of the Nile, and then distracted by other urgent affairs, left it out in the sun and forgot it. When he came back the mixture had fermented. He drank it, and thought it so good that he let mankind profit by it. This was said to be the origin of beer. Most of the problems in the Moscow Mathematical Papyrus are algebraic pefsu problems. A pefsu measures the strength of the beer made from a hekat of grain.
Megan Garber wrote in The Atlantic: “Beer, some have argued, helped give birth to civilization. In ancient Egypt, sustaining humans through the vagaries of the hunt and the harvest, it was consumed by children as well as adults. It was drunk by the wealthy and the poor alike. It was an integral part of both religious ceremonies—Egyptians offered their thick, sweet version of the stuff up to their gods—and everyday life.” [Source: Megan Garber, The Atlantic, January 3, 2014 ]
Dr. Ethan Watrall wrote: Ancient Egyptian beer (not like the beer of today) was known to be produced on a large scale for sale and consumption. Evidence of industrial beer brewing facilities have been discovered at urban sites across the land including Hierakonpolis. [Source Dr. Ethan Watrall, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Michigan State University, Brewminate, February 5, 2014]
The glyph for a beer jug also appears in the words: "Htpt" ("hotepet"-a bowl for bread offerings); "iaw r" (breakfast); "athw" ("atkhu"-brewers); "swr" ("sur"-drink); "hmu" ("hemu"-payment for employment); "Awt" ("ahut"-gifs, food); "Htp ntr" ("hotep netjer"-gods offerings); "hbbt" ("khabbit"-jar); "sTt" ("sejet"-beer jar); "Hnw" ("henu"-possessions, goods); "st ht" and "SAbw" ("set khet", "shahbu"-meal); "irTt" ("irtjet"-milk); "mhr" ("meher"-milk jar); "wdHw" and "Htp"("wedhu", "hotep"-offering); "msyt" ("mesyut"-supper).” [Source: ancientegyptonline.co.uk]
See Separate Articles:
EARLIEST BEER factsanddetails.com ;
DRINKS IN MESOPOTAMIA: MAINLY BEER africame.factsanddetails.com
History of Beer in Ancient Egypt
A 5,000-year-old beer factory has been found Abydos (See Below). Candida Moss wrote in the Daily Beast: “As ancient as the Abydos factory is, it wasn’t the first place that beer was made. The world’s oldest alcoholic beverage likely comes from China, but beer likely emerged in the Middle East. The factory is roughly contemporaneous with ceramic vessels — still coated with a sticky beer residue — found in ancient Mesopotamia. The Sumerian “Hymn to Ninkasi” (ca. 1800 B.C.), which was sung in honor of the goddess of beer, includes a recipe that was made by female priestesses. For ancient Sumerians, beer was a staple as it was healthier than drinking water from streams, which was often contaminated with animal waste. [Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, March 6, 2021]
Beer was drunk by everyone from Pharaohs to peasants, and workers were even sometimes paid in beer Cleopatra introduced a tax on beer — which ancient Egyptians preferred to wine — to finance her wars with Rome. As Jason Lambrecht has put it, “this was so outrageous to Egypt, that it would compare to a tax on water today. ” [Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, March 6, 2021]
“Like the Americans, the ancient Egyptians loved their beer. It was only when the Romans, who much preferred wine and bread, turned Egypt into the bread-basket of the Roman empire that breweries were replaced with granaries. With that the beer recipes of the Egyptians were lost — but perhaps this new discovery will help reveal the ancient beer industry’s secrets. [Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, March 6, 2021]
Types of Beer in Ancient Egypt
According to Egyptologist Zahi Hawass, ancient Egyptians "had five types of beer with higher alcohol content than modern brews." It has been thought that the Egyptians flavored the beer with date juice or honey, because the straining method the Ancient Egyptian beer used to produce beer would not give much flavor.
Candida Moss wrote in the Daily Beast: “Ancient Egyptian beer was flavored with mandrakes, olive oil and dates, which accounted for the sweetness; it was only with the rise of beer among medieval monks that hops were thrown into the mix. Bavarian brewers would add chicken blood and ox bile to their beers to improve the flavor. [Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, March 6, 2021]
Beer was favorite drink in all times. Under the Old Kingdom men made four sorts of beer, including black beer. In the New Kingdom foreign beer from eastern Asia Minor was preferred; in Greek times the Egyptians drank Zythos beer, of which Diodorus says that its smell was as the smell of wine. We know little about the preparation of beer; all accounts however agree that it was made from ground barley, or as it was called, the “corn of Upper Egypt. " [Source: Adolph Erman, “Life in Ancient Egypt”, 1894]
Beer and Ancient Egyptian Everyday Life
Beer was perhaps the most common drink and affordable enough that ordinary people could drink it every day. Beer came jars and freshly made beer may have been consumed with straws. Many workers were buried with jars of beer so they wouldn’t be without it in the afterlife. An industrial scale beer factory dated to 3500 B.C. has been found in Hierakonpolis. Eight vats discovered there could produce 300 gallons of beer a day.
John Noble Wilford wrote in the New York Times, “Artistic depictions and written sources attest to beer's popularity in early Egypt. The elite and hoi polloi alike enjoyed beers with names like Joy Bringer, the Beautiful and Heavenly. They drank through tubes from ceramic cups and sometimes did not know when to say when. An Egyptian papyrus of 1400 B.C. warned of the dangers of loose talk "in the taverns in which they drink beer." [Source: John Noble Wilford, New York Times, July 26, 1996]
According to ancientegyptonline.co.uk: “Beer was generally known as "Hqt" ("heqet" or "heket"), but was also called "tnmw" ("tenemu") and there was also a type of beer known as haAmt ("kha-ahmet"). The determinative of the word Hqt (beer) was a beer jug. It is no exaggeration to say that beer was of central importance to ancient Egyptian society. Beer was enjoyed by both adults and children, was the staple drink of poor Egyptians but was also central to the diet of wealthy Egyptians. The gods were often made offerings of beer and beer was mentioned in the traditional offering formula. Wages were often paid in beer (and other supplies) and the workmen living in the workers village at Giza received beer three times a day as part of their rations. [Source: ancientegyptonline.co.uk ]
“There is some evidence that as a staple foodstuff, ancient Egyptian beer was not particularly intoxicating. Rather it was nutritious, thick and sweet. However, it is clear that beer could also be as intoxicating as egyptian wine as participants in the festivals of Bast, Sekhmet and Hathor would get very drunk as part of their worship of these goddesses. A popular myth tells how beer saved humanity when Sekhmet (in her role as the "Eye of Ra") was tricked into drinking coloured beer which she mistook for blood and became very drunk, passing out for three days! Although the above three goddesses were closely associated with beer, it was Tjenenet who was the official ancient Egyptian goddess of beer.
Drunkeness at a ”House of Beer” Party
The Egyptians were not content with the feasts instituted at great festivals, but when the opportunity arose, they were quite willing without any particular reason to arrange a “house of beer" — a small banquet. We have already seen an instance of this in which the judges had arranged one of these pleasure parties with the accused, and had heavily to atone for their indiscretion. Well might the wise 'Eney teach: “Drink not beer to excess! . . . The words that come out of thy mouth, thou canst not recall. Thou dost fall and break thy limbs, and no one reaches out a hand to thee. Thy comrades go on drinking, they stand up and say: ' Away with this fellow who is drunk. ' If any one should then seek thee to ask counsel of thee, thou wouldst be found lying in the dust like a little child. " These words of wisdom, however, were as useless as those of Dauuf, who entreated his son to content himself with two jugs of beer and three loaves of bread. ' The Egyptian youth seems to have followed his own sweet will, and one teacher wrote sorrowfully to his pupil as follows:
“I am told: thou dost forsake books,
Thou dost abandon thyself to pleasure,
Thou dost wander from street to street;
Every evening the smell of beer,
The siTiell of beer scares away men (from thee).
It destroys thy soul.
Thou art as a broken oar,
That can guide to neither side,
Thou art as a temple without
its god, A house without bread.
Thou art cauglu as thou dost climb upon the walls.
And dost break the plank.
The people flee from thee,
And thou dost strike and wound them.
Oh that thou didst understand that wine is an abomination,
And that thou wouldest abjure the shedeh drink.
That thou didst not set thy heart on cool drinks,
And that thou wouldest forget the T'enreku. .
Now thou art instructed how to sing to the flute.
To recite (?) to the pipe (?),
To intone to the lyre, To sing to the harp. "
Girls are also represented in the company of an inebriated man; they embrace him and he sits by them “imbrued with oil, and with a wreath of cotton weed round his neck. " He may then pat himself in a contented way, but when he tries to get up, he tumbles and falls down and “bespatters himself with mud like a crocodile. "
Beer in Ancient Egyptian Temple Rituals
Mu-Chou Poo of the Chinese University of Hong Kong wrote: “Being the most popular and affordable drink in ancient Egypt, beer featured prominently as an offering in funerary as well as temple rituals. The brewing of beer involves the fermentation of cereals, and, as studies of beer residues show, the brewing of beer in general comprises several steps. First, a batch of grain was allowed to sprout, thereby producing an enzyme. Then another batch of grain was cooked in water to disperse the starch naturally contained within it. The two batches were subsequently combined, causing sugar to be produced, and then sieved. Finally, the sugar-rich liquid was mixed with yeast, which fermented the sugar into alcohol. [Source: Mu-Chou Poo, Chinese University of Hong Kong, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 2010, escholarship.org ]
“Like the offering of wine, the beer-offering was a common ritual in Egyptian temples. However, although Hathor’s epithet “Mistress of Drunkenness” was found in beer-offering scenes , it is somewhat surprising to learn that, contrary to our expectations, the mythological story of the Destruction of Mankind does not appear to have been alluded to in the beer-offering liturgies. What were emphasized in the offering liturgies were concerns regarding the correctness and meticulousness with which the beer was brewed: “Take the sweet beer, the supply for your majesty, which is brewed correctly. How sweet is its taste, how sweet is its smell!. How beautiful are these beer jars, which are brewed at the correct time, which fill your ka at the time of your wish. May your heart be joyful daily. Take for yourself the wonderful beer, which the noble one has brewed with her hands, with the beautiful plant from Geb and myrrh from Nepy.”
“The deities’ emphasis on the proper brewing of beer is interesting, since the production of wine was never mentioned as having been done by gods. It is mentioned that music was performed during the offering of beer: “Take the beer to appease your heart...for your ka according to your desire, may you drink it, may [you] be happy, as I make music before you”. This leads us to rethink whether the epithet of Hathor as “Mistress of Drunkenness” necessarily alludes to the mythological story of the Destruction of Mankind, and not to a more general sense of intoxication and rejuvenation. After all, beer, above all other offerings, would be the obvious choice for alluding to the story if indeed the story gave rise to Hathor’s epithet.”
See Separate Article: WORSHIP AND RITUALS IN ANCIENT EGYPT africame.factsanddetails.com
Ancient Egyptian Beer-Making
According to ancientegyptonline.co.uk: “According to legend, Osiris taught ancient Egyptians the art of brewing beer, but the brewing of beer was traditionally but not exclusively a female activity though which women could earn a little extra money (or bartered goods) for themselves and their families. The main ingredient in the beer was bread made from a rich yeasty dough possibly including malt. The bread was lightly baked and crumbled into small pieces before being strained through a sieve with water. Flavour was added in the form of dates and the mixture was fermented in a large vat and then stored in large jars. However, there is also evidence that beer was brewed from barley and emmer which was heated and mixed with yeast and uncooked malt before being fermented to produce beer. [Source: ancientegyptonline.co.uk ]
Scholars have not been sure how the Egyptians brewed their beer. In some temple art, it appeared that beer was made by crumbling bread into water and letting it ferment by yeast from the bread, yielding a coarse liquid swimming with chaff. But a researcher at Cambridge University in England has now examined beer residues and desiccated bread loaves from Egyptian tombs and found evidence of much more sophisticated brewing techniques in the second millennium B.C.
Dena Connors-Millard of Minnesota State University, Mankato wrote: “Legend teaches that Osiris taught humans to brew beer. In keeping with this idea the Egyptians often used beer in religious ceremonies and as the meal-time beverage. Because of the prevalence of beer in the Egyptian life, many Egyptologists have studied beer residue from Egyptian vessels. For a very long time it was thought that the Egyptians made a crude beer by crumbling lightly baked, well-leavened bread into water. They then strained it out with a sieve into a vat and the water was allowed to ferment because of the yeast from the bread. " [Source: Dena Connors-Millard ,Minnesota State University, Mankato, ethanholman.com, Menon, Shanti "King Tut's Tipple" Discover, January 1997, Samuel, Delwen "Investigation of Ancient Egyptian Baking and Brewing Methods by Correlative Microscopy" Science July 1996]
New Insights Into Beer Making in Ancient Egypt
In 1996 Dr. Delwen Samuel from the University of Cambridge found that the Egyptians seem to have used barley to make malt and a type of wheat, emmer, instead of hops. They heated the mixture then added yeast and uncooked malt to the cooked malt. After adding the second batch of malt the mixture was allowed to ferment. In the analysis Samuel did she found no traces of flavorings. Samuel and her colleagues tried brewing the beer using the recipe derived by the analysis. They brewed it at a modern brewery and found the beer to be fruity and sweet because it lacked the bitterness of hops.[Source: Dena Connors-Millard ,Minnesota State University, Mankato, ethanholman.com, Menon, Shanti "King Tut's Tipple" Discover, January 1997, Samuel, Delwen "Investigation of Ancient Egyptian Baking and Brewing Methods by Correlative Microscopy" Science July 1996]
In a report published in the journal Science in 1996, Dr. Delwen Samuel, a research associate in archeology at Cambridge, said "the current conceptions about ancient Egyptian bread and beer making should be modified." A microscopic analysis of beer residues, she said, indicated a more elaborate brewing process, blending cooked and uncooked malt with water and producing a refined liquid free of husk. The microstructure of the residues, Dr. Samuel concluded, "is remarkably similar to that of modern cereal foods." In an accompanying article, Dr. Glynis Jones, a researcher at the University of Sheffield in England, who studies cereal-processing methods, said the findings were "the first real scientific evidence for the ancient brewing techniques." The study was possible because it was the practice of ancient Egyptians to leave food and beer in their tombs for sustenance in the afterlife and the arid climate preserved those remains. Dr. Samuel examined with optical and electron microscopes nearly 70 loaves of bread from several sites and beer residues from more than 200 pottery vessels found among the ruins of workers' villages.
Almost all of the bread was made from a type of wheat known as emmer, sometimes flavored with coriander and fig. Both emmer and barley -- not barley alone, as previously thought -- were used for brewing. No flavorings have been detected in the beer residues. An analysis of starch granules, in particular, showed that the Egyptians did not use lightly baked bread as the main ingredient in brewing. Instead, they seemed to use a two-part process. The grains were deliberately sprouted and heated to provide sugar and flavor. The cooking made the grain more susceptible to attack by the enzymes that convert starch into sugars. This batch was then mixed with sprouted but unheated grains in water. Yeast was added to the combination of sugar and starch in solution, and this fermented to make beer.
In 1996 Dr. Samuel and Dr. Barry Kemp, a Cambridge Egyptologist, in collaboration with a British brewery, brewed an ale according to the recipe inferred from this recent research. The beverage was slightly cloudy with a golden hue. "It does not taste like any beer I've ever tried before," Dr. Samuel said. "It's very rich, very malty and has a flavor that reminds you a little of chardonnay."
World's Oldest Known Beer Factory Found in Abydos
In February 2021, American and Egyptian archaeologists announced that they had unearthed what they said could be the oldest known beer factory in Abydos, a famous archaeological site and burial ground located in the desert west of the Nile River, more than 450 kilometers (280 miles) south of Cairo. Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said the factory apparently dates back to the time of King Narmer at the beginning of the First Dynastic Period (3150-2613 B.C.). [Source: Associated Press, February 14, 2021]
The joint mission that found the brewery is co-chaired by Dr Matthew Adams of the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and Deborah Vischak, assistant professor of ancient Egyptian art history and archaeology at Princeton University. Adams said the factory was apparently built in this area to provide royal rituals with beer, given that archaeologists found evidence showing the use of beer in sacrificial rites of ancient Egyptians.
Associated Press reported: “Archaeologists found eight huge units — each is 20 meters (about 65 feet) long and 2. 5 meters (about 8 feet) wide. Each unit includes some 40 pottery basins in two rows, which had been used to heat up a mixture of grains and water to produce beer, Waziri said. British archaeologists were the first to mention the existence of that factory in the early 1900s, but they could not determine its location, the antiquities ministry said. With its vast cemeteries and temples from the earliest times of ancient Egypt, Abydos was known for monuments honouring Osiris, ancient Egypt's god of underworld and the deity responsible for judging souls in the afterlife.
Dr. Adams told the Daily Beast that the factory was built to supply beer for royal rituals. The brewery itself was divided into eight large sections, each of which contained 40 clay pots for mixing grain and water. In its prime, Adams added, the brewery may have produced as much as 22,400 liters (nearly 6,000 gallons) of beer at a time.[Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, March 6, 2021]
Tomb of an Ancient Egyptian Beer Brewer
In 2014, archaeologist excavated the tomb of Khonsuemheb, an ancient Egyptian beer brewer. Judging from the tomb’s layout and decorations he was quite rich and highly-ranked. While doing routine cleaning of the burial plot of a statesman in the court of Amenhotep III—King Tut's grandfather—in Luxor, a group of Egyptologists from Japan's Waseda University discovered another tomb. [Source: Megan Garber. The Atlantic, January 3, 2014 =]
“I was surprised to find such a beautiful tomb,” Jiro Kondo, the head of the Japanese mission, told Archaeology magazine. He said he had only a handful of chambers with such well-preserved murals have been unearthed at the necropolis. Among the paintings, which date to between 1292 and 1069 B.C., is the depiction of the funeral procession led by Khonsuemheb. According to inscriptions in the chamber, he was the chief beer maker of the temple of the mother goddess Mut — an important ritual position. On the ceiling, two figures of Khonsuemheb are painted next to the text of a hymn to the sun god Amun-Ra and a depiction of a solar boat, in which the dead were thought to sail for eternity. [Source: Eric A. Powell, Archaeology magazine, May-June 2014]
The beer-brewer's tomb is T-shaped, Ahram Online's Nevine El-Aref reports, with two halls and a burial chamber. And in the image above, provided by Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, you can see the well-preserved painting decorating the tomb. It features scenes of grain fermentation as well as the finished products being presented in jugs, ostensibly to Mut. According to Kondo the wall's scenes depict Khonsuemheb himself, accompanied both by family members and various deities. =
Megan Garber wrote in The Atlantic: “Khonsuemheb was, in addition to being a brewer, also the head of the warehouse where the beer he made was stored. And his resting place in death is fitting for his role in life: golden-hued and exuberant and intoxicating. As Egypt's minister of antiquities, Mohammed Ibrahim, explains, the tomb features "fabulous designs and colors, reflecting details of daily life ... along with their religious rituals." =
Recreating Ancient Egyptian Beer
Brian Westcott, head brewer at Barn Hammer Brewing Company, Tyler Birch, owner of Barn Hammer and Matt Gibbs, an associate professor and chair of classics at the University of Winnipeg recreated ancient Egyptian beer. The Canadian Press reported: It took hours of translating, milling and baking, but ale experimenters in Winnipeg have finally sipped a beer created from a fourth-century Egyptian alchemist’s recipe. “If you expect this to taste like a modern beer, you are not going to find that,” said Gibbs. “This beer is very, very sour. It’s good. It’s much better than I thought it was when we first did it, I will say that much, but it’s different. ” [Source Canadian Press, March 15, 2018]
The original recipe was found in the book, The Barbarian’s Beverage: A History of Beer in Ancient Europe, by Max Nelson at the University of Windsor. It was chosen because Gibbs figured he could stay close to the original process and, unlike some of the other recipes, the ingredients were available and legal.
First, they made a sourdough bread from water and barley flour milled by hand. It took 18 hours to bake the loaves at a heat low enough that the enzymes essential for beer-making stayed alive. The loaves were then submerged in a fermenter at Barn Hammer.
The only major differences from the original recipe was that a stainless steel fermenter was used and the barley wasn’t malted on a roof in the sun. Weeks went by and the experiment slowly turned from a murky mix to a pristine pint. “After tasting the bread they made, I thought we were going to have something really disgusting, but it turned out really well,” Birch said. “I’m actually blown away by how good it is. It’s actually very drinkable. ”
It’s not what most people would consider a beer and tastes more like a sour cider with hints of raisin or apple. The drink is flat because there was no carbonation more than 1,000 years ago. The brewers figure the alcohol content is about three per cent, similar to modern light beer.
Ancient Nubian Antibiotic Beer
Ancient Nubians appear to have consumed a beer made from grains containing antibiotics. According to a study published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. large amounts of tetracycline was found embedded in the bones of ancient Nubian mummies, who lived along the Nile in present-day Sudan,and their most likely source is the beer they drank consistently throughout their lifetimes, beginning early in childhood. “Given the amount of tetracycline there, they had to know what they were doing,” lead author of the study George Armelagos, a biological anthropologist at Emory University in Atlanta, said. “They may not have known what tetracycline was, but they certainly knew something was making them feel better.” [Source: Emily Sohn, abc.net.au, discovery news, September 2010 )=(]
Emily Sohn wrote: “Armelagos was part of a group of anthropologists that excavated the mummies in 1963. His original goal was to study osteoporosis in the Nubians, who lived between about 350 and 550 A.D. But while looking through a microscope at samples of the ancient bone under ultraviolet light, he saw what looked like tetracycline — an antibiotic that was not officially patented in modern times until 1950. At first, he assumed that some kind of contamination had occurred. “Imagine if you’re unwrapping a mummy, and all of a sudden, you see a pair of sunglasses on it,” says Armelagos. “Initially, we thought it was a product of modern technology.” )=(
“His team’s first report about the finding, bolstered by even more evidence and published in Science in 1980, was met with lots of scepticism. For the new study, he got help dissolving bone samples and extracting tetracycline from them, clearly showing that the antibiotic was deposited into and embedded within the bone, not a result of contamination from the environment. They were also able to trace the antibiotic to its source: grain that was contaminated with a type of mold-like bacteria called Streptomyces. Common in soil, Strep bacteria produce tetracycline antibiotics to kill off other, competing bacteria. )=(
“Grains that are stored underground can easily become moldy with Streptomyces contamination, though these bacteria would only produce small amounts of tetracycline on their own when left to sit or baked into bread. Only when people fermented the grain would tetracycline production explode. Nubians both ate the fermented grains as gruel and used it to make beer...It appears that doses were high that consumption was consistent, and that drinking started early. Analyses of the bones showed that babies got some tetracycline through their mother’s milk. Then, between ages two and six, there was a big spike in antibiotics deposited in the bone, Armelagos said, suggesting that fermented grains were used as a weaning food. )=(
“Today, most beer is pasteurised to kill Strep and other bacteria, so there should be no antibiotics in the ale you order at a bar, says Dennis Vangerven, an anthropologist at the University of Colorado, Boulder. But Armelagos has challenged his students to home-brew beer like the Nubians did, including the addition of Strep bacteria. The resulting brew contains tetracycline, tastes sour but drinkable, and gives off a greenish hue. )=(
“There’s still a possibility that ancient antibiotic use was an accident that the Nubians never knew about, though Armelagos has also found tetracycline in the bones of another population that lived in Jordan. And VanGerven has found the antibiotic in a group that lived further south in Egypt during the same period. Finding tetracycline in these mummies, says VanGerven, is “surprising and unexpected. And at the very least, it gives us a very different time frame in which to understand the dynamic interaction between the bacterial world and the world of antibiotics.”“ )=(
Dr. Michael Poe wrote: “There were several types of early Egyptian vineyards. The first grapevines incorporated into a formal garden for creating beauty as well as for utility. The second was a work of agriculture and existed in an orchard garden along with fruit trees and vegetables. The third was a formal vineyard as we know them today. The 3rd dynastic administrator of northern Egypt, Methen, had a garden-vine at his estate and a regular vineyard by itself in another area. In addition to nobles owning vineyards, temples had their own on their temples estates, and the pharaohs had theirs as well; Rameses III lists 513 vineyards belonging to the temple of Amon-Ra.” [Source: Michael Poe, Phd, Touregypt.Net, 2004 ^=^]
“In orchards grape vines were object of special attention and was one of the gardeners most important jobs. The hieroglyphic sign for vines is used in the writing of the words “orchard” and “gardener.” There were also specific jobs with titles like “Master of the Vineyard,” and “Master of the Vine-Dresser.” ^=^ “The best vineyards were in the Delta, followed by the Fayyum, Memphis, and then southern Egypt and the oasises. The major sources of information on the production of wine are the wall paintings and reliefs from tombs of the Old Kingdom (Saqqara) and the New Kingdom (at Thebes). The comments and recommendations of classical authors give us insight into the qualities and types of the various wines, vineyards and types. ^=^
“Many scenes from tombs gives us a fairly accurate picture of the Egyptian vineyards and the techniques of wine production. The best site to locate a vineyard was on a hill, but if there wasn’t one than the Egyptians made an artificially raised plot of land and planted the vines there. A wall generally enclosed the area and vegetables and fruit were planted with the grapes. They were watered by hand generally from a water basin. ^=^
“There were four ways to grow grape vines. One was to erect two wood pillars with the upper ends forked, and a wooden pole laid over the top where the vines were laid. This type of support also forms a hieroglyph which is used in the words meaning ‘garden,’ ‘wine,’ and ‘vine’. A second way is to train the grape vines to grow on trellis’s supported on transverse rafters that rested on columns. Occasionally the columns were carved and painted. A third way was to make vine arbors consisting of branches with the ends placed in the ground to form an arch. And lastly, some vines were grown and pruned to make low bushes and needed no support.” ^=^
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons
Text Sources: UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, escholarship.org ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Egypt sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Tour Egypt, Minnesota State University, Mankato, ethanholman.com; Mark Millmore, discoveringegypt.com discoveringegypt.com; Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Discover magazine, Times of London, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, BBC, Encyclopædia Britannica, Time, Newsweek, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “History of Warfare” by John Keegan (Vintage Books); “History of Art” by H.W. Janson Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.
Last updated August 2024