Wine Cellar Unearthed at a Biblical-Era Palace in Israel

[Wren]

 

Huge Wine Cellar Unearthed at a Biblical Era Palace in Israel

 

Residue in the jars also showed signs of various additives, including herbs, berries, tree resins and possibly honey. This would fit with records of wine additives from ancient Greek and Egyptian texts, the team says. Some of these ingredients would have been used for preservation or to give the wine psychotropic effects. “This is a relatively sophisticated drink,” says Koh. “Somebody was sitting there with years if not generations of experience saying this is what best preserves the wine and makes it taste better.”

 

...He also expressed some concern that the team’s traces from the ancient jars are not a perfect match for the modern reference samples used in the study. A few extra steps in the chemistry could verify the link between the acids and wine grapes, he says. Still, assuming the residue tests stand up, the results fit well with other evidence for wine making in the Middle East, he says. Previous discoveries suggest that wine grapes were first grown in the neighboring mountains and moved south into the region around Tel Kabri by the middle of the 4th millennium B.C. Records from the time show that by the Middle Bronze Age, Jordan Valley wine had become so celebrated that it was being exported to the Egyptian pharaohs

 

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/huge-wine-cellar-unearthed-biblical-era-palace-israel-180952495/#2fZJEPZ5CaKAv2sq.99