full title, "A first-of-its-kind discovery of 1,500 year-old grape seeds may answer the question: Why was the wine of the Negev so renowned in the Byzantine Empire-February 2015".
Posted on 02/13/2015 12:07:15 PM PST by SunkenCiv
For the first time, grape seeds from the Byzantine era have been found. These grapes were used to produce "the Wine of the Negev" -- one of the finest and most renowned wines in the whole of the Byzantine Empire. The charred seeds, over 1,500 years-old, were found at the Halutza excavation site in the Negev during a joint dig by the University of Haifa and the Israel Antiquities Authority. "The vines growing in the Negev today are European varieties, whereas the Negev vine was lost to the world. Our next job is to recreate the ancient wine, and perhaps in that way we will be able to reproduce its taste and understand what made the Negev wine so fine," said Prof. Guy Bar-Oz of the University of Haifa, director of the excavation.
The archeologists know of "the Wine of the Negev" or "Gaza Wine" -- named for the port it was sent from to all corners of the empire -- from historical sources from the Byzantine period. This wine was considered to be of very high quality and was very expensive, but unfortunately, it did not survive to our day, so we do not know what it was that made it so fine. In earlier excavations in the Negev, archeologists found the terraces where the vines were cultivated, the wineries where wine was produced, and the jugs in which the wine was stored and exported, but the grape seeds themselves were not found...
Like elsewhere in the Negev, the stone buildings at Halutza -- which in its heyday was the most important Byzantine city in the Negev -- did not survive due to stone theft over the ages. But, as often happens in archaeological excavations, the archeologists actually found their rare finding in the refuse dump.
(Excerpt) Read more at antiquities.org.il ...
full title, "A first-of-its-kind discovery of 1,500 year-old grape seeds may answer the question: Why was the wine of the Negev so renowned in the Byzantine Empire-February 2015".
it was the feet or what was on them
I imagine it was a very dry wine. Very dry.
Why were Babylonian cooks, Macedonian stave binders, brewers of Jerusalem and Egyptian swineherds considered grave insults?
The roots of Islam? ;’)
But delicious served with filet of sole.
I think you may have something there. Those very phrases were used in a letter from a Cossack leader to an Islamic Sultan which provoked a war around the 9th century.
It will be very interesting to see what the DNA turns up about the ancestry of the vines. One would think the origin would not be European because of the aridity of the Negev.
Fascinating question!
Kind of like, Hell is Where:
The British are the chefs
The Swiss are the lovers
The French are the mechanics
The Italians make everything run on time
And the Germans are the police.
Anyway, now for the answer! (Drumroll, please)
;^)
To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, “Wine is God’s way of telling us he loves us and wants us to be happy.”
:-))
As an aside, when I was a youngster, you had to recite that letter word perfect to get into our club.
Of course, there are several translation versions floating around, but our favored version was published in Ripley's Believe It or Not.
I think you’re off on the date. It was written in 1891, late 19th century, not 9th century.
Oh, no, I’m off on the date, too. That’s the date of the painting. The event was in the 17th century — 1676.
I knew it couldn’t be 9th century because in the 9th century there weren’t Cossacks yet
The man writing is probably a monk, serving as the cheiftain’s scribe. I think the chief is in the black hat, directly behind him. Everyone else, of course, is roaring with laughter.
I love this picture ... something about the Cossacks’ reply to the sultan who expected them to pay tribute to him ... they were all trying to come up with better riffs on the theme of “F you, you goat ####er.”
Painted by a Russian artist.
Maybe this should be the West’s response to the whining of Moslems.
Grapes seem to have adapted to a lot of different places; I had thought that Muscadine was from the Middle East (Muscat, as in Muscat and Oman), and much to my surprise the muscadines (which include such colorfully named variations as Scuppernong) are native to the SE US, and were used to revive the fortunes of the French winemaking industry when it was hit by a disastrous fungal problem, and again after WWI when the vinyards were a little banged up. :’) Wouldn’t it be hilarious if the Muscandine grapes turned out to be genetically linked with the Negev wine grapes, proving ancient contact? Heh heh...
Don’t fret, perhaps the Cossack leader in the 9th century resulted from another accident with a contraceptive in a time machine. ;’) Thanks V, good info.
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