Posted on 03/15/2004 5:41:55 PM PST by blam
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 jar from King Tut's tomb, and it is the first time scientists have provided evidence of the color of wine in an archaeological sample. The report appears in the March 15 edition of Analytical Chemistry, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society.
The earliest scientific evidence of grapes is from 60-million-year-old fossil vines, while the first written record of winemaking comes from a much more recent source, the Bible, which says Noah planted a vineyard after exiting the ark.
Scientists have detected wine in a jar from as far back as 5400 B.C., found at the site of Hajji Firuz Tepe in the northern Zagros Mountains of present-day Iran. But the earliest knowledge about wine cultivation comes from ancient Egypt, where the winemaking process was represented on tomb walls dating to 2600 B.C.
"Wine in ancient Egypt was a drink of great importance, consumed by the upper classes and the kings," says Maria Rosa Guasch-Jané, a master in Egyptology at the University of Barcelona in Spain. She and Rosa M. Lamuela-Raventós, Ph.D., a professor of nutrition and food science, have analyzed samples of ancient Egyptian jars belonging to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and the British Museum in London.
One sample came from the tomb of King Tutankhamun, discovered in 1922 by Howard Carter in Western Thebes, Egypt. The inscription on the jar reads: "Year 5. Wine of the House-of-Tutankhamun Ruler-of-the-Southern-On, l.p.h.[in] the Western River. By the chief vintner Khaa."
"Wine jars were placed in tombs as funerary meals," Guasch-Jané says. "The New Kingdom wine jars were labeled with product, year, source and even the name of the vine grower, but they did not mention the color of the wines they contained." Scientists and oenophiles have long debated the type of grape that ancient Egyptians used in their wines.
Using a new method for the identification of grape markers, Lamuela-Raventós and her coworkers determined that the wine in this jar was made with red grapes.
Tartaric acid, which is rarely found in nature from sources other than grapes, has been used before as a marker for the presence of wine in ancient residues, but it offers no information about the type of grape.
Malvidin-glucoside is the major component that gives the red color to young red wines, and no other juice used in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean region contains it. As wine ages, malvidin reacts with other compounds forming more complex structures. The researchers directed their efforts toward developing a tool for breaking down these structures to release syringic acid.
Analysis of ancient samples requires a very sensitive method to minimize the amount of sample that needs to be used. To detect syringic acid, the researchers used a technique called liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry in tandem mode, which is known for its high speed, sensitivity and selectivity. This method has never before been used to identify tartaric acid or syringic acid, nor has it been used on any archaeological sample, according to the scientists.
Lamuela-Raventós and Guasch-Jané plan to use the new technique in more extensive studies of wine residues from other archaeological samples.
The Spanish Wine Culture Foundation and Codorniu Group provided funding for this research.
What a coincidence...so do I.
It's a small world, I tell ya.
I mean, who was the first human to say "Gee, I wonder if a palatable drink would result if we were to take a bunch of grapes, stomp on them for a while, filter out the stems, and store the liquid in bottles for a year or so?"
Or how about butter? What insane person came up with the idea to take cream from a cow, make it sour, and then churn it up until it turned into something solid?
I wonder how many other great foods have yet to be invented because nobody so far is crazy enough to do the things necessary to make it?
Some fruits and berries ferment on the vine, allowing bears and other natural oenophiles to get stinking drunk on them. It has been happening before there were humans to notice.
Who knows? Maybe it fulfilled a 'public service' function mandated by the government?
A man of impeccable taste no doubt ... King Tut and I have managed to span the millenniums in our mutual love of a fine red wine. Borassa Valley reds from Australia are one of my favorites ... King Tut missed out on some great reds.
Hmmmm Me put in pocket.
Hmmmm Rock broke.
Hmmm Me put other one in brother's pocket.
Bwahahahahah Me play yolk on brother!
LOL! I'm just thankful they did along with the first guy who decided to pickle capers. I guess after 30,000+ years of eating we figured a few things out.
I've alway been intrigued by soap making. Fat, alkaloid water, boiling it down. Someone was really, really on the ball that day .
I also find it interesting that urine was a major source of cleaning fluid, even in the 1700s. Check out your shampoo bottle, we still use urea (main chemical in urine) today. Plus urea breaks down to form ammonia.
What I don't understand was that "lant" (old urine) was often used in baking of bread. I really can't figure out how that was a plus.
I sure do, Sam. A rudimentary sort of wine surely invented itself, as VadeRetro noted. Once confronted with the naturally occurring phenomenon, man improved upon it.
But what about one of my other favorite beverages, coffee? Who first thought to pick coffee berries, discard the flesh, roast the seeds, grind them, pour hot water over them, and drink the residue?
But back to wine, I've always liked the (probably apocryphal) story of the wine-making monk whose batch underwent an unexpected secondary fermentation after it had been bottled. The monk, Dom Perignon, bravely tasted the wine, which was assumed to have spoiled. "Brothers, come quickly! I am drinking stars!" he called, according to legend. He had, of course, discovered Champagne.
Or how about butter? What insane person came up with the idea to take cream from a cow, make it sour, and then churn it up until it turned into something solid?
I wonder how many other great foods have yet to be invented because nobody so far is crazy enough to do the things necessary to make it?
"Butter" first off it is fresh cream and salt, (not that it matters much if you don't have refrigeration), if you were to put cream in a gourd and go for a 20 mile hike (10 miles if your gait resembles the prance of someone from frisco), you will end up with butter, easy.
Cheese now that is a different story. Bread another story. (See you folks later, Me Google, Bread, Cheese, g'night)
I was saying this exact same thing to my wife last week. We were watching a Japanese TV show about making some sort of starch (can't remember the name now).
First they had to go out in the woods, find, dig up and cut off the roots of a certain tree (I probably would have stopped there. The odds of tree roots being delicious doesn't seem too high).
Then they took them back to the house and pounded the roots to fiber.
Soaked the fiber in water until a brown soup was left.
Let the solids settle to the bottom of the tub.
Drain and clean the top dirt layer off and a white layer that looked like chalk was left.
Put in more water and repeat this about 3 times.
What was left at the end was a white chalky looking substance. My wife says it's good but who went to all that trouble to find out in the first place?
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