WINE AND BEER IN THE ANCIENT WORLD

The most prized beverages of ancient peoples were wine and beer. Sediments found in jars excavated at a site in northwest Iran prove that techniques for the manufacture of wine were known as early as the sixth millennium b.c.e. Beer dates back at least as far as the fourth millennium b.c.e. Archaeological excavations have brought to light the equipment used in preparing, transporting, serving, and imbibing these beverages. In Egypt and Mesopotamia, beer, made from wheat or barley by an elaborate process, was the staple drink of both the elite and the common people. Women prepared beer for the family in their homes, and breweries produced large quantities for sale. Because the production process left chaff floating on the surface of the liquid, various means were employed to filter this out. Sculptures on Mesopotamian stone reliefs and seals show several drinkers drawing on straws immersed in a large bowl.

Archaeologists have found examples of the perforated metal cones that fit over the submerged ends of the straws and filtered the liquid beer drawn through them. The sharing of beer from a common vessel by several people probably was seen as creating a bond of friendship among the participants. Archaeologists have also found individual beer “mugs” resembling a modern watering can: closed bowls with a perforated spout to filter the chaff and a semicircular channel carrying the liquid into the drinker’s mouth.
In Greece, Rome, and other Mediterranean lands, where the climate was suitable for cultivating grape vines, wine was the preferred beverage. Vines were prepared in February and periodically pinched and pruned. The full-grown grapes were picked in September, then crushed — with a winepress or by people trampling on them — to produce a liquid that was sealed in casks for fermentation. The new vintage was sampled the following February. Exuberant religious festivals marked key moments in the cycle. Initially expensive and therefore confined to the wealthy and for religious ceremonies, in later antiquity wine became available to a wider spectrum of people. Unlike beer, which requires refrigeration, wine can be stored for a long time in sealed containers and thus could be transported and traded across ancient lands. The usual containers for wine were long, conical pottery jars, which the Greeks called amphoras.
The Greeks, who normally mixed wine with water (and thought it scandalous that Persians drank undiluted wine), developed an elaborate array of vessels, made of pottery, metal, and glass, to facilitate mixing, serving, and drinking the precious liquid . Kraters were large mixing bowls into which the wine and water were poured. The hydria was used to carry water, and a heater could be used to warm the water when that was desired. Another special vessel could be used to chill the wine by immersion in cold water. Ladles and elegantly narrow vessels with spouts were used to pour the concoction into the drinkers’ cups.
The most popular shapes for individual drinking vessels were a shallow bowl with two handles, called a kylix, and the kantharos, a large, deep, two-handled cup. Another popular implement in Greece and western Asia was the rhyton, a horn-shaped vessel that tapered into the head and forepaws of an animal with a small hole at the base. The drinker would fill the horn, holding his thumb over the hole until he was ready to drink or pour, then move his thumb and release a thin stream of wine that appeared to be coming out of the animal’s mouth. The drinking equipment belonging to wealthy Greeks was often decorated with representations of the god of wine, Dionysus, holding a kantharos and surrounded by a dense tangle of vines and grape clusters. His entourage included the half-human, half-horse Centaurs; and the Maenads, literally “crazy women,” female worshipers who drank wine and engaged in frenzied dancing until they achieved an ecstatic state and sensed the presence of the god.

Greeks, Romans, and other Mediterranean peoples used wine for more conventional religious ceremonies, pouring libations on the ground or on the altar as an offering to the gods. It was also used as a disinfectant and painkiller or as an ingredient in various medicines. Above all, wine was featured at the banquets and drinking parties that forged and deepened social bonds. In the Greek world, the symposion (meaning “drinking together”) was held after the meal. The host presided over the affair, making the crucial decision about the proportion of water to wine, suggesting topics of conversation, and trying to keep some semblance of order. There might also be entertainment in the form of musicians, dancers, and acrobats.
In Shang China, magnificent bronze vessels whose surfaces were covered with abstract designs and representations of otherworldly animals were used in elaborate ceremonies at ancestral shrines. The vessels contained offerings of wine and food for the spirits of the family’s ancestors, who were imagined to still need sustenance in the afterlife. The treasured bronze vessels were often buried with their owners so that they could continue to employ them after death. In later periods, as the ancestral sacrifices became less important, beautiful bronze vessels, as well as their ceramic counterparts, became part of the equipment at the banquets of the well-to-do.

By Richard W. Bulliet-(Columbia University), Pamela Kyle Crossley- (Dartmouth College), Daniel R. Headrick- (Roosevelt University), Steven W. Hirsch- (Tufts University), Lyman L. Johnson- (University of North Carolina—Charlotte) & David Northrup- (Boston College) in the book "The Earth and Its Peoples"- A Global History, Wadsworth (Cengage Learning), U.S.A.,2011, excerpts p.138-139. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

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