This level of industrial food production may indicate a pooling of agricultural resources or in fact the control thereof. Exciting discovery of a mysterious complex of rock-cut chambers carved high into the cliff face inside the sacred wadi at Abydoswhat could they be? It is possible that the pavement, which shows no evidence of burning or exposure to fire, is a pre-existing structure which made a convenient building site. Caches of pottery-making tools and other features there leave no question about the function of that site, thus similar technology was used in the manufacture of a variety of products. Looking to amp up your beef stew but unsure where to start? But no one had mastered carbonation yet. Overview of the complex, which evidence suggests is a large-scale food-production site, at the end of the excavations. Feature 4, the remnants of a vat emplacement finally gave us the information we were looking for. The complex is enclosed by walls on the north, west (Feature 1), and south made of stacked up pot sherds cemented together with mud and coated with a plastering of mud on the interior surfaces. Archaeologists working in the ancient city of Hierakonpolis discovered five ceramic vats containing residues consistent with brewing beer. The site is sufficiently disturbed that we cannot tell the full thickness of the wall, as the exterior face does not survive intact. The impression indicated a somewhat conical vat with a maximum diameter of 80 cm, a base diameter of 50 cm (we found the base fragments) and a height of about 65 cm, commensurate with known examples and the vat sherds we had found reused throughout the site. The tops of the fire legs were affixed to the vats with a thick layer of mud, which also probably helped control the cooking temperature inside. The adventure of the munkoyo beer told by Dany Griffon. Read the articles Contact us Contribute Contributors Share and rights Cookies. This residue is similar in appearance to that found at the brewery site at HK24A in the 1980s, but provides new and fresh samples for study in order to determine the product involved. Earlier research on predynastic brewery sites at Tell el-Farkha, Hierakonpolis, Mahasna, and other parts of Abydos is a big part of how we know that this royal brewery is special: that it is an order of magnitude larger in scale, with all the implications for political economy that entails. | Credit: Ayman Damarany for the North Abydos Project. Create your free account or Sign in to continue. "Beyond that, remains from what appears to be a large Roman brewery has been found at modern Regensburg in Germany, where emperor Marcus Aurelius built a large military encampment. Reviews aren't verified, but Google checks for and removes fake content when it's identified, Predynastic Beer Production at Hierakonpolis, Upper Egypt: Archaeological Evidence and Anthropological Implications, Washington University, 1992. | Credit: Robert J. Fletcher for the North Abydos Project, Archaeologists Have Uncovered the World's Oldest Industrial-Scale Brewery in Egypt. The stratigraphic section along the sandy trench allowed us to detect the presence of other vat emplacements, evident from the white ashy semicircular lens against the wall segments of Feature 1 flanked by thick deposits of charcoal coming in through the doors. Residue analysis of pottery fragments from Hierakonpolis, Egypt. 5 & 6), as well as structures belonging to three later phases of funerary architecture, the Old, Middle (ca. Once in a while, an elaborate burial comes to light and takes your breath away like the one we found last week just outside the east corner gateway of the Shunet el-Zebib. Whatever the product at HK24B--whether beer or perhaps a porridge--it was not being made on a domestic scale. Phosphoric acid via barley would have made it possible to mass-produce beer, store it for extended periodsand even transport itall consistent with the important role beer played in ancient Egyptian society. Careful excavation also revealed details of the construction. The story of archaeology life in quarantine at Abydos, Egypt during the Covid-19 pandemic. Beer was a staple food, but also served a variety of social functions in the political economy of Ancient Egypt. Texas Tech University microbiologist Moamen Elmassry. Finding intact archaeological features is really just a matter of luck, figuring out what the disturbed remains represent is where the skill and imagination comes in. "Much smaller breweries at earlier sites in Egypt, such as Hierakonpolis to the south and Tell el-Farkha in the Nile Delta, which could produce a few hundred to perhaps a thousand liters per batch can rightly be described as 'industrial' for their time," he continued. Some 5,600 years ago, people in the Egyptian city of Hierakonpolis did something thats still a very popular activity today: The above text is a transcript of this podcast. Right, the plastered face of Feature 3. Others asked, IPA or Hefeweizen? Knowledge awaits. Food and Wine presents a new network of food pros delivering the most cookable recipes and delicious ideas online. The ancient Egyptians are best known for their pyramidsremarkable feats of engineering for the time, though also not particularly practical. This wall is interrupted by three--originally, possibly originally five (the southern part is poorly preserved)--apertures or "doors" that are 20 to 30 cm in width and set at more or less regular intervals. The use of hops was unknown to the ancient Egyptians, and we think that they used phosphoric acid to preserve their beer.. Although frustrating at time, the piles of potsherds and burnt mud eventually gave up their secrets and hidden surprises, but only after a good deal of earth shifting and detective work. Continue reading with a Scientific American subscription. And thinking about how ancient Egyptians were able to do a similar thing thousands of years ago, its kind of very special feeling., [The above text is a transcript of this podcast. The intriguing line of mud-coated, vertically set sherds visible on the surface of the desert was what led us to dig here in the first place. The wall called Feature 1 bounded the structure on the north and west and probably continued to the south. We use cookies to help provide and enhance our service and tailor content and ads. After New Years, the time available for the excavations at HK24B flew by in a flash. To book a talk please send us an email. 15), highlighted. We expected a wall running parallel to Feature 1 along the east side, but instead we found a broad area of black ash resting on a fairly solid and dense base of potsherds at about the same level as the pavement on the exterior of the structure, or in essence at floor level. Naqada II, 3700-3200 BC (Berlin, Neues Museum). The Abydos royal brewery doesnt just sit on the edge of ancientspaceat Abydos, where it lay lost and nearly forgotten for more than a centuryit also sits on the edge of ancienttime. These may bring to mind something closer to life on a farm than an excavation, but did you know there is a long history of adapting traditional agricultural tools to archaeology in Egypt? Soil samples were collected and the botanical material was separated by the technique called flotation. Studying ancient beer has allowed Elmassry to reflect on the intersection of science and history. 20001700 BCE), and New (ca. How do archaeologists get ancient ruins to give up their secrets? With the lessons learned from the excavation of Feature 4, it was then possible to recognize the location of other vats, no longer preserved, in the section conveniently cut for us by the sandy trench. In an experimental pottery firing, Jane Smythe demonstrated how a kiln made of (modern) sherds and mud is constructed, and how part of the structure may remain intact following firing and subsequent removal of the fired product. Within these black ash-filled areas was a concentration of vegetal material. We cant wait to discover what else lies in store! Fuel and wood, which had burnt down to white ash, was then placed around the sides of the vat. ", This isn't to say "breweries" didn't yet exist. Analysis of the residue and other organics should confirm or refute the brewery function of the site, and might shed new light on the step in the brewing process that vats and residue represent, e.g., malting, mashing, or fermentation. "Large-scale beer production has been inferred a few centuries later at the 'Lost City of the Pyramid Builders' near the Giza pyramids, based on the presence of industrial-scale bread making, which was a closely related activity, and the very large number of beer jars found at the site," Adams said. Indeed, we excavated through great quantities of jumbled, re-used mud-encrusted sherds. 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Our working hypothesis is that this is a large-scale food production site, perhaps a brewery, but further scientific analysis particularly of the botanical remains is necessary for accurate identification of its function. Worldwide interest in the discovery that the predynastic brewery at North Abydos is Egypts first royal brewery and possibly the worlds oldest industrial-scale brewery has made at least one thing clear: Beer is a big part of what makes us human (and, as it turns out, a big part of what makes humans into gods, too). Take a closer look at the shared historical roots of modern agricultural and archaeological fieldwork in Egypt in our latest blog post. Recent excavations at Hierakonpolis, a major site of Egypts Pre- and Early Dynastic period, have revealed large-scale brewery installations, suggesting that the beverage played a significant role in the development of complex society and the expression of power and status, with collateral impact on craft specialization.