topics: |  food | drink | wine | history

23 articles on the scientific, archaeological, botanical, textual, and
historical aspects of winemaking in antiquity.  Topics include
the domestication of the Vinifera grape, the wine trade, the
iconography of ancient wine, and the analytical and archaeological challenges
posed by ancient wines.

Chapter 10: Searching for Wine in the archaeological
   record of ancient Mesopotamia in the Third and Second Millenia BC, in
   McGovern.  RL Zettler and NF Miller, has an very informative look
   at the evidence from artifacts etc. of ancient Iraq.

At the Sumerian city of Lagash (near Basra in Southern Iraq, may have been
on the Euphrates or the the Shat-al-Arab in 4000BCE) a complete brewery has
been excavated dating to around 2500 BCE.  The brewery
     included tanks for the making of beer-bread (bappir), a mixture of
     dough and aromatic herbs, and a large oven in which, according to the
     hymns to the beer-goddess Ninkasi, the beer bread would have been
     baked.  [2]

Another shard from a pottery jar contains the Sumerian cuneiform signs for
"beer" and "jar".  Sumerian cylinder seals also depict beer drinking at
banquets and during sexual intercourse [2].