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Contact: Allison Byrum a_byrum@acs.org 202-872-4400 American Chemical Society King Tut liked red wine Ancient Egyptians believed in properly equipping a body for the afterlife, and not just through mummification. A new study reveals that King Tutankhamun eased his arduous journey with a stash of red wine. Spanish scientists have developed the first technique that can determine the color of wine used in ancient jars. They analyzed residues from a jar found in the tomb of King Tut and found that it contained wine made with red grapes. This is the only extensive chemical analysis that has been done on a...

LONDON - King Tutankhamen was a red wine drinker, according to a researcher who analyzed traces of the vintage found in his tomb. Maria Rosa Guasch-Jane told reporters Wednesday at the British Museum that she made her discovery after inventing a process that gave archaeologists a tool to discover the color of ancient wine. "This is the first time someone has found an ancient red wine," she said. Wine bottles from King Tut's time were labeled with the name of the product, the year of harvest, the source and the vine grower, Guasch-Jane said, but did not include the color...

Ancient Israelites, with the possible exception of a few teetotaling Nazirites and their moms, proudly drank beer -- and lots of it. Men, women and even children of all social classes drank it. Its consumption in ancient Israel was encouraged, sanctioned and intimately linked with their religion. Even Yahweh, according to the Hebrew Bible, consumed at least half a hin of beer (approximately 2 liters, or a six-pack) per day through the cultic ritual of libation, and he drank even more on the Sabbath (Numbers 28:7-10). People who were sad were advised to drink beer to temporarily erase their troubles...

Chinese archaeologists have claimed to have unearthed a sealed bronze pot containing two kilograms of red liquid during an excavation of an ancient tomb built in the Warring States Period (475 BC - 221 BC). Wafts of the ancient vintage greeted the archaeologists after they opened the pot, The China Daily reports. The find has been sent to Beijing for tests and verification.

The original makers of Côtes-du-Rhône are said to have descended from Greek explorers who settled in southern France about 2500 years ago... The study, by Prof Paul Cartledge, suggested the world's biggest wine industry might never have developed had it not been for a "band of pioneering Greek explorers" who settled in southern France around 600 BC. His study appears to dispel the theory that it was the Romans who were responsible for bringing viticulture to France. The study found that the Greeks founded Massalia, now known as Marseilles, which they then turned into a bustling trading site, where local...

(05-18) 18:18 PDT CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Archaeologists digging in a 5,000-year-old site in southern Egypt have unearthed 200 rough ceramic beer and wine jars and a second mud-brick mortuary enclosure of King Hur-Aha the founder of the First Dynasty, Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities said Wednesday. A joint American excavation mission from Yale University, Institute of Fine Arts, the Pennsylvania University Museum and New York Universities found the treasure Wednesday at Shunet El-Zebib, north of Abydos in the Upper Egyptian city of Sohag.

The "winery" consisted of two stone buildings connected with an wooden passage. One of the buildings was filled up with grapes, which was then pressed with large rectangular stones. According to the archaeological team, similar wineries have been found the Caucasus, the Crimean Peninsula, Serbia, Israel. Yotov... said the last such "winery" was found in Israel at the beginning of 2009, and is believed to have been the largest in the Byzantine Empire. Yotov thinks the winery of the fortress near Byala was part of a monastery... The fortress near Byala is located on an area of 38-40 decares, and...

The excavation being carried out at Tal-Log'g'a in Mg'arr ix-Xini. An archaeological site being excavated at Mg'arr ix-Xini has further enforced the notion that viticulture and wine production have been an important part of the Maltese economy since the Classical period. The excavation site, at Tal-Log'g'a, is in a field next to where two troughs dug into the rock were found and is believed to have been used for grape pressing. The field is being excavated in a bid to shed more light on the troughs' use. Some 15 sets of troughs have been found in Mg'arr ix-Xini valley to...

Centuries ago, come September, galleys would be rowed into Mg˙arr ix-Xini harbour and loaded with amphorae filled with wine that had been pressed in the valley. Winemakers would fill shallow basins with grapes and, once pressed, the juice would flow through holes and channels into a deeper collecting holder, all carved into the rock. These wine presses, said to date back to 500 BC, can still be seen embedded in the Gozitan valley and are being studied and documented in a project carried out by the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage and the Sannat and Xewkija local councils with the support...

Archaeologists rewrite timeline of Bronze and Iron Ages, including early appearance of alphabet FOR RELEASE: Dec. 19, 2001 Contact: Blaine P. Friedlander Jr. Office: 607-255-3290 E-Mail: bpf2@cornell.edu ITHACA, N.Y. -- Using information gleaned from the sun's solar cycles and tree rings, archaeologists are rewriting the timeline of the Bronze and Iron Ages. The research dates certain artifacts of the ancient eastern Mediterranean decades earlier than previously thought. And it places an early appearance of the alphabet outside Phoenicia at around 740 B.C. Writing in two articles in the forthcoming issue of the journal Science (Dec. 21), archaeologists from Cornell University ...

A new doctoral thesis from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, shows that, in contrast to traditional scholarly claims, Dionysian cultic activities may very well have occurred in archaic Rome in the decades around 500 BC. A strong scholarly tradition rooted in the 19th century denies the presence of Dionysian ecstatic rites, cults, and satyr plays in Roman society. Although people in nearby societies evidently engaged in such behaviour around the same time in history, the Romans simply did not, according to early scholars. British scholars often stressed how much their people had in common with the Romans, not least as...

“I could drink much wine and yet bear it well” -- Darius the Great, King of Persia (6th BCE), Athenaeus 10.45 The history of wine making and wine drinking is an old one in Persia, and today the Darioush vineyard in the Napa Valley which has become renowned in the art of wine making, is attempting to revive this tradition in the United States. Wine connoisseurs today may be familiar with the word Shiraz, the name of a town in southwest Persia famed for its grapes. Whether or not the Shiraz grape was the source of the Medieval Syrah, brought...

Researchers Shed New Lights on Origin of Ancient Chinese Civilization Chinese ancients living 3,500 to 4,500 years ago already had many choices for meal, including millet, wheat and rice, which are still the staple food of the Chinese. They also compiled calendars according to their astronomical observation, which is regarded as one of the symbols of the origin of civilization. They made exquisite bronze vessels to hold wine and food, and some of the bronze vessels were later developed into symbol of the supreme imperial power. But how the Chinese civilization started and evolved remains a magnetic topic that has...

PARIS (AFP) - Scientists in France and Italy have deciphered the complete genetic code for the plant producing wine grapes, according to a study published Sunday. While the findings will do nothing to enhance the mystique of winemaking, they could pave the way for gene-based manipulations to boost flavour and improve resistance against disease. Dozens of researchers analyzing the Pinot Noir varietal of Vitis vinifera, the core species from which virtually all grape wine is made, found twice as many genes contributing to aroma than in other sequenced plants, suggesting that wine flavours could be traced to the genome level....

Two wine presses found in Egypt were likely part of the area's earliest winery, producing holy wine for export to Christians abroad, archaeologists say. Egyptian archaeologists discovered the two presses with large crosses carved across them near St. Catherine's Monastery, a sixth-century A.D. complex near Mount Sinai on the Sinai Peninsula. (See a map of the area.) More presses are likely to be found in the area, which was probably an ancient wine-industry hub, according to Tarek El-Naggar, director for southern Sinai at Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. Weeks after discovering the first wine press, excavators unearthed a nearly identical...

An international team of researchers have discovered after chemical analyses, that organics absorbed and preserved in pottery jars from the Neolithic village of Jiahu, in Henan province, Central China contained a beverage of rice, honey, and fruit made as early as 9,000 years ago... According to Dr. McGovern, the analysis of these liquids point to their being fermented and filtered rice or millet wines – known as “jiu” or “chang” according to Shang Dynasty oracle inscriptions.

ROBBIO, Italy (Reuters) - Wine conjures up the image of cultured drinkers sipping their way delicately through a full-bodied vintage. But for two history buffs with a passion for the tipple, northern Italy has the barbarians to thank for its long wine-making tradition. Luca Sormani, from Como, and Fulvio Pescarolo, from the tiny town of Robbio near Milan, have traced the region's wine culture all the way back to its Celtic roots and have started making it according to ancient methods. Celtic tribes from farther north -- known to the Romans as "Barbari" -- conquered northern parts of Italy about...

Cyprus was the first Mediterranean country to make wine, an Italian archaeologist has claimed. Maria-Rosaria Belgiorno said she uncovered evidence, during an archaeological dig near the southern coastal town of Limassol, that Cypriots produced wine up to 6,000 years ago, AFP reports. 'At Pyrgos we found two jugs used for wine and the seeds of the grapes. And at Erimi, of the 18 pots we looked at, 12 were used for wine between 3,500BC and 3,000BC,' Belgiorno was quoted as saying in the Cyprus Weekly newspaper. It was previously believed that the Mediterranean wine-making tradition originated in what is now...

First Wine? Archaeologist Traces Drink to Stone Age William Cocke for National Geographic News July 21, 2004An expert on ancient wine, Patrick McGovern is searching for the origins of the first domesticated grapevine. Above, the University of Pennsylvania archaeologist searches a ravine near the headwaters of the Tigris River in Turkey's Taurus Mountains for grapevines untouched by human cultivation. Photograph courtesy P.E. McGovern Wine snobs might shudder at the thought, but the first wine-tasting may have occurred when Paleolithic humans slurped the juice of naturally fermented wild grapes from animal-skin pouches or crude wooden bowls. The idea of winemaking may...

Ancient ale Prehistoric yeast takes beer drinkers back millions of yearsBy Suzanne Bohan Contra Costa Times Sep 24, 2009‎ GUERNEVILLE, Calif. - Inside a stainless-steel tank at a brew pub here overlooking the redwood-rimmed Russian River, a 45-million-year-old yeast proves its mettle. And the remarkably resilient prehistoric microbe hasn't just garnered a devoted pack of Fossil Fuels Beer fans, it's also providing palpable proof of the tenacity of life on this planet. When the Australian-born owner of Stumptown Brewery, Peter Hackett, first learned of the ancient yeast, he doubted this long-extinct strain would ferment anything drinkable. It took the urging...