An Ancient Vintage

An Ancient Vintage
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University Press Scholarship Online
Edinburgh Scholarship Online
Everyday Life in Ancient Mesopotamia
Jean Bottero
Print publication date: 2001
Print ISBN-13: 9780748613878
Published to Edinburgh Scholarship Online: March 2012
DOI: 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748613878.001.0001
An Ancient Vintage
Andr Finet
DOI:10.3366/edinburgh/9780748613878.003.0005
Abstract and Keywords
In ancient Mesopotamia, among the oldest civilised people in the world, alcoholic
beverages were part of the festivities as soon as a simple repast bordered on a feast.
Although beer, brewed chiefly from a barley base, remained the national drink, wine
was not unknown. It was a common topic in the archives of the palace of Mari, the brilliant
metropolis of the Middle Euphrates. These texts, which throw light on the political and
social life of the kingdom and its neighbours, also provide useful evidence about eating
habits. Viticulture is just as much a matter of tradition as favourable soil or climate. The
town of Carchemish on the Euphrates was by its geographical position the most important
port of the Upper Euphrates and a very well-patronised market. It was the capital of an
independent kingdom, in friendly relations with Mari.
Keywords: Mesopotamia, beer, wine, Mari, viticulture, Carchemish, Euphrates
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In ancient Mesopotamia, among the oldest civilised people in the world, alcoholic
beverages were part of the festivities as soon as a simple repast bordered on a feast.
Although beer, brewed chiefly from a barley base, remained the national drink, wine
was not unknown. We find it mentioned early in the third millennium, and its success was
always undeniable throughout the whole of Mesopotamian history.
In the eighteenth century BC, it was a common topic in the archives of the palace of Mari,
the brilliant metropolis of the Middle Euphrates. These texts, which throw light on the
political and social life of the kingdom and its neighbours, also provide useful evidence
about eating habits. We lack direct information about the life of the ordinary people, and it
does not seem very likely, a priori, that it copied court life. Nevertheless, wine figures
among the travel provisions allocated to foreign messengers and much later but that
may only be due to the chancy nature of our documentation itinerant traders would
offer it in the streets.
In the time of Mari, the main grape-growing regions extended outside the kingdom, to
the north and west. Even today, they are found in the Anatolian south, at Nizip or
Gaziantep, as in western Syria, around Horns or Aleppo. (p.85) Viticulture is just as
much a matter of tradition as favourable soil or climate. The town of Carchemish on the
Euphrates on the present-day Turco-Syrian border and the outlet for the produce of
Anatolia and the foothills was by its geographical position the most important port of the
Upper Euphrates and a very well-patronised market. It was the capital of an independent
kingdom, in friendly relations with Mari.
If Carchemish was the key city of the north, the port of Emar on the great loop of the
Euphrates, where the river leaves the northsouth direction to go eastwards was the
centre of trade with the west, that is, the land of Yamhad and its capital, Aleppo, Canaan
and Mediterranean coastal ports such as Byblos and Ugarit. In the time of Zimri-Lim
(17751760 BC), the town of Emar was one of the king of Aleppos possessions. As at
Carchemish, besides grain, wood and wine were also loaded. Canaans vintages were
renowned; according to the Bible, the region of Samaria was surrounded by vineyards,
and the land of Moab had an abundance of winepresses. The Gibeon vintage was famous
in the eighth to sixth centuries BC; excavations at El Jib/Gibeon have revealed a very
important wine-making centre, with presses, fermentation vats and wine-stores at a
constant cool temperature. The eighty-three warehouses discovered could have held
some 100,000 litres. On this point Herodotus confirms the importance of the western
regions; according to him, the Babylonians had no vines, and Phoenician wine was taken
there by the boatload.
There were numerous varieties of wine, but it was not until the first millennium that these
were given names, sometimes taken from their vineyard. Most often, wine (karnu) is
mentioned without any qualification. When it is determined, it is chiefly red wine. There
are few mentions of white wine, but this may be because of our ignorance of the precise
meaning of certain adjectives. There is first (p.86) quality wine and ordinary or
second choice wine. There is light wine, that is, white or ros, or perhaps young.
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The same adjective describes wine used for ritual offerings: in this instance it is
translated as pure, which signifies that it is suitable for liturgical use or, quite simply,
that it has not been diluted with water.
There is new wine and old wine; the latter would have been a wine allowed to age to
develop its qualities which was also done for some beers. There is sweet wine and
sweetened white wine, naturally or by the addition of honey or fruit extracts. There is
bitter or sharp wine, probably made so by the incorporation of the juice of certain
plants. There is strong wine, probably with a high alcohol content. And there is good
wine, like that destined for Mari by the king of Carchemish, or the one which, a thousand
years later, Sargons soldiers would draw by bucketsful from the reserves of the palace
of Ulhu. Are we to understand by this a wine of superior quality reserved for the royal
tables or, less probably, a wine sweetened perhaps with honey?
The dispatches of wine from the north to the palace of Mari were often accompanied by
jars of honey; but what accompanies is not necessarily complementary. In fact, the wine
was treated by incorporating various ingredients intended to alter its taste or density
water, honey or some sugary exudation, essences of aromatic types of wood. As well as
being diluted, it was also decanted, doubtless to eliminate sediment, and blended.
The wine reserves of the palace of Mari were laid down in one or more storerooms: the
jars were placed in a wooden rack intended to hold them and keep them separate. This
was known as a kannum, and gave its name to the wine-cellar, called the room with the
kannum. Besides the usual jars (karptum), holding slightly less than ten litres, perhaps
there were also vats of larger capacity. All (p.87) the palace stores were under seal, and
only the top officials had access to them. The wine stocks were especially precious,
judging by a passage from the Annals of Sargon II of Assyria who, in his 714 BC
campaign, meticulously looted the palace of an Urartu vassal: I entered his wine-store
which was part of his secret treasure. In the mountains of Armenia, the king of Urartu
had turned the Ulhu region into a land where it rained fruit and wine. Sargon caused
terror there, forced his way into the royal residence, and his soldiers drew good wine in
goatskins and pails, as if it were river water. Archaeological excavations have brought to
light large wine-stores at Karmir-Blur near Erevan.
At princely tables, they drank wine cooled with ice. Wine and ice were placed in the store,
nakkamtum, just before consumption. The ice was collected in winter in the mountains of
the north, and perhaps also hardened and compacted snow, but certainly hailstones
when a sudden storm hit the country.
They then had to be kept and their surveillance ensured, while porters were assembled
to collect them as quickly as possible and transport them to a place where shaq,
cupbearers, wine-waiters, would take delivery of them and place them in this or that
store. All this work called for rapid execution, apart from much improvisation. There were
specialists to share the tasks, and the means of transport jars, goatskins or sacks were
sufficiently well-tried to be reliable. It seems incredible to us today that, with these
rudimentary means and a far from propitious climate, the Mesopotamians were able to
An Ancient Vintage
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carry ice for 200 kilometres!
The ice for immediate use, taken from the reserve to be placed in the goblets, was kept in
iceboxes. These icehouses (bt shurpim) have been found at Hattusas, the capital of the
Hittites, in the heart of Anatolia, and at Qatara, in the north-west of present-day Iraq.
These two areas had frosts in winter that could sometimes be long and (p.88) severe;
but where that was not the case, in the kingdom of Mari, texts mention three ice-houses.
They were brick buildings buried with drainage pipes to extract the water. In short, a
construction very similar to the ice-houses that could still be found, in the nineteenth
century, in the parks of chteaux and large country houses.
It was mainly on the occasion of festivals and banquets that strong drinks were taken. The
guests drank straight from the jar, with the aid of a hollow stalk. Many monuments evoke
drinking with a straw, and some representations associate it with erotic scenes; where
these show the coupling of a man and woman, some people believe they can recognise
the annual rite of the hieros gamos. This sacred marriage between the king and a
priestess taking the place of a fertility goddess is well attested in literature; it was thought
to ensure general prosperity for a year. Partaking of strong drink prepared them for
lovemaking or boosted weakened energies. Others see nothing religious in these
representations; they are merely an image of happiness in a civilisation where even the
most deviant sexual act was subject to no taboo (see Chapter 6).
Libations Offered to the Gods
People also drank from goblets; to clink drinking vessels was a sign of happiness. The
conclusion of an agreement or the signing of a contract was sealed in the same manner.
Similarly, everyone propitiated his own personal god or goddess by offering the first
pickings of the meal. Everywhere, the deities in the pantheon were receptive to libations
of good beer or wine. In 714 BC, when Sargon II set about the methodical looting of the
temple of the god Haldia, amongst the booty was a large bronze vat with a capacity of 80
mandtu [unknown but certainly large (p.89) measure], with its great bronze stand,
which the kings of the land of Urartu filled with wine for libations during the performance
of sacrifices before the god Haldia . At the end of the second millennium, a wish was
expressed for the Cassite king of Babylon: that my lord may imbibe life, when he drinks
the bitter wine of Tupliash, the remains of the offering to the goddess Ishtaran, who loves
thee. The wine of Tupliash was a renowned vintage harvested in the region of Eshnunna,
east of the Tigris.
The Mesopotamians also knew fruit-based wines. It is difficult to identify them, as we do
not fully understand the vocabulary. The wine amurdinnum may well have had the dark
fruit of wild blackberries as its base; others are merely names to us. A date-based drink
was made, the shikar sulupp, which some Assyriologists hold to be a variety of beer.
Dates were called ana shikari, for the fermented drink , perhaps because their over-
ripe state destined them for it. A date alcohol is still made in Iraq, the date arak, in the
same way that in the Drtyol region of Turkey an orange arak is made. Intoxicating drink
brings euphoria; there were drunks in the streets. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, when Enkidu
curses the courtesan who has awakened him to civilisation, he wishes that the drunkard
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may soil your festive garments with his vomit [?], that the sot and the boozer slap your
face! At a time when the use of wine was widespread enough for it to be offered by
itinerant sellers, a correspondent of king Assurbanipal (668627 BC) puts him on his
guard. The sovereign has just promoted three soldiers; now, these men are drunks and,
if he has had too much, a man carrying a dagger does not turn away from anyone coming
towards him. Like Aesops language, the vine is the best and the worst of things. We
learn that certain Jewish circles, around the time of Jesus, made it the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, with its forbidden fruit.
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