Ancient Wine

by McGovern, Patrick E.

• ISBN13: 9780691127842
• ISBN10: 0691127840
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-01-02
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

The history of civilization is, in many ways, the history of wine. This book is the first comprehensive and up-to-date account of the earliest stages of vinicultural history and prehistory, which extends back into the Neolithic period and beyond. Elegantly written and richly illustrated,Ancient Wineopens up whole new chapters in the fascinating story of wine and the vine by drawing upon recent archaeological discoveries, molecular and DNA sleuthing, and the texts and art of long-forgotten peoples. Patrick McGovern takes us on a personal odyssey back to the beginnings of this consequential beverage when early hominids probably enjoyed a wild grape wine. We follow the course of human ingenuity in domesticating the Eurasian vine and learning how to make and preserve wine some 7,000 years ago. Early winemakers must have marveled at the seemingly miraculous process of fermentation. From success to success, viniculture stretched out its tentacles and entwined itself with one culture after another (whether Egyptian, Iranian, Israelite, or Greek) and laid the foundation for civilization itself. As medicine, social lubricant, mind-altering substance, and highly valued commodity, wine became the focus of religious cults, pharmacopoeias, cuisines, economies, and society. As an evocative symbol of blood, it was used in temple ceremonies and occupies the heart of the Eucharist. Kings celebrated their victories with wine and made certain that they had plenty for the afterlife. (Among the colorful examples in the book is McGovern's famous chemical reconstruction of the funerary feast--and mixed beverage--of "King Midas.") Some peoples truly became "wine cultures." When we sip a glass of wine today, we recapitulate this dynamic history in which a single grape species was harnessed to yield an almost infinite range of tastes and bouquets.Ancient Wineis a book that wine lovers and archaeological sleuths alike will raise their glasses to.

Author Biography

Patrick E. McGovern is a Senior Research Scientist in the Museum Applied Science Center for Archaeology (MASCA) and is Adjunct Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. The author or editor of eight other books on archaeology and archaeological science, over the past two decades he has pioneered the emerging field of biomolecular archaeology.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. xi
Foreword	p. xv
Preface	p. xix
Stone Age Wine	p. 1
Sifting Fact from Legend	p. 3
Man Meets Grape: The Paleolithic Hypothesis	p. 7
Whence the Domesticated Eurasian Grapevine?	p. 11
When and Where Was Wine First Made?	p. 14
The Noah Hypothesis	p. 16
Genetics and Gilgamesh	p. 16
Transcaucasia: The Homeland of Viniculture?	p. 19
Exploring Georgia and Armenia	p. 21
Ancient DNA	p. 25
Casting a Wider Net in Anatolia	p. 29
The Indo-European Homeland	p. 30
"Noah's Flood"	p. 35
Farther Afield	p. 37
The Archaeological and Chemical Hunt for the Earliest Wine	p. 40
Godin Tepe	p. 40
Molecular Archaeology Comes of Age	p. 48
Identifying the Godin Tepe Jar Residues by Infrared Spectrometry	p. 51
Archaeological Inference	p. 54
From Grape Juice to Wine to Vinegar	p. 55
Winemaking at the Dawn of Civilization	p. 58
The First Wine Rack?	p. 60
A Symposium in the True Sense of the Word	p. 61
Neolithic Wine!	p. 64
A Momentous Innovation	p. 65
Liquid Chromatography: Another Tool of Molecular Archaeology	p. 68
Ancient Retsina: A Beverage and a Medicine	p. 70
A Media Barrage	p. 72
Wild or Domesticated Grapes?	p. 74
More Neolithic Wine Jars from Transcaucasia	p. 74
Creating a Ferment in Neolithic Turkey: A Hypothesis to Be Tested	p. 78
Wine of the Earliest Pharaohs	p. 85
A Royal Industry Par Excellence	p. 85
An Amazing Discovery from a Dynasty 0 Royal Tomb	p. 91
Ancient Yeast DNA Discovered	p. 103
Wine of Egypt's Golden Age	p. 107
The Hyksos: A Continuing Taste for Levantine Wines	p. 107
Festival Wine at the Height of the New Kingdom	p. 120
Wine as the Ultimate Religious Expression	p. 134
Wines of the Heretic King, Akhenaten, and of Tutankhamun	p. 137
The Vineyard of Egypt under the Ramessides	p. 141
Wine of the World's First Cities	p. 148
A Beer-Drinking Culture Only?	p. 149
Banqueting the Mesopotamian Way	p. 158
Wine, Too, Was Drunk in the Lowland Cities	p. 160
Transplanting the Grapevine to Shiraz	p. 164
Wine and the Great Empires of the Ancient Near East	p. 167
Wine Down the Tigris and Euphrates	p. 168
Wines of Anatolia and the Lost Hittite Empire	p. 174
Assyrian Expansionism: Cupbearers, Cauldrons, and Drinking Horns	p. 188
The Fine Wines of Aram and Phoenicia	p. 201
Eastward to Persia and China	p. 206
The Holy Land's Bounty	p. 210
Winepresses in the Hills, and Towers and Vineyards in the Wadi Floors	p. 212
The Success of the Experiment	p. 217
Serving the Needs of a Cosmopolitan Society	p. 220
Wine for the Kings and the Masses	p. 225
Dark Reds and Powerful Browns	p. 233
Wine: A Heritage of the Judeo-Christian Tradition	p. 236
Lands of Dionysos: Greece and Western Anatolia	p. 239
Drinking the God	p. 240
A Minoan Connection? The Earliest Greek Retsina	p. 247
Wine Mellowed with Oak	p. 259
"Greek Grog": A Revolution in Beverage Making	p. 262
Wine and "Greek Grog" during the Heroic Age	p. 268
A Beverage for King Midas and at the Limits of the Civilized World	p. 279
King Midas and "Phrygian Grog"	p. 279
Re-creating an Ancient Anatolian Beverage and Feast	p. 293
To the Hyperborean Regions of the North: "European Grog"	p. 296
Molecular Archaeology, Wine, and a View to the Future	p. 299
Where It All Began	p. 299
Consumed by Wine	p. 302
Why Alcohol and Why Wine?	p. 305
The Lowly Yeast to the Forefront	p. 307
Mixing Things Up	p. 308
Wine, the Perfect Metaphor	p. 312
Selected Bibliography	p. 317
Illustration Credits and Object Dimensions	p. 329
Index	p. 335
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