Study: Herbs added to 5,100-year-old Egyptian wine

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This undated photo provided by University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology courtesy of the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo shows the inside of a wine vessel sherd that was buried with one of ancient Egypt's first rulers, Scorpion I, is shown.

Herbs have been detected in wine from the tomb many centuries before the civilization's known use of herbal remedies in alcoholic beverages, according to a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.


(AP Photo/Courtesy of
German Archaeological Institute in Cairo)

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                                        Herbal wine, just the thing for ailing pharoahs






YAHOO NEWS
Mon Apr 13, 2009
WASHINGTON

– When great-grandma took a nip of the elderberry wine "for medicinal purposes," she was following a tradition that goes back thousands of years.

Indeed, researchers say they have found evidence that the Egyptians spiked their wine with medicinal herbs as long as 5,000 years ago.

A chemical analysis of pottery dating to 3150 B.C. shows that herbs and resins were added to grape wine, researchers led by Patrick E. McGovern of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology report in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

Adding tree resin to wine to prevent disease was widely known in ancient times, also being reported in ancient China, and continuing into the Middle Ages, the researchers say.

And they note that Egyptian records report that a variety of herbs were mixed in wine, beer and other liquids for medical uses.

Chemicals recovered from the pottery indicate that in addition to wine there were savory, blue tansy and artemisia — a member of the wormwood family — present. Other chemicals indicate the possible presence of balm, senna, coriander, germander, mint, sage and thyme.

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On the Net:

PNAS: http://www.pnas.org

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                                              Pharoah's Wine Jar Yields Medicinal Secrets

 
                        Egyptians may have been using herb-spiked drink for healing 5,000 years ago






MONDAY, April 13, 2009
(HealthDay News)

-- The old adage, "take a glass of wine for thy stomach's sake,"

may have been heeded more than 5,000 years ago in ancient Egypt, archaeologists report.

Sophisticated analysis of residues found in wine jars left in the tomb of Scorpion 1, perhaps the first pharaoh, shows that the wine had been steeped in herbs including balm, coriander, mint and sage, according to a report published in this week's issue April 13 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

That tomb dates back to 3150 B.C., explained lead researcher Patrick E. McGovern, a senior research scientist at the University of Pennsylvania Museum Applied Science Center for Archaeology.

"This is the earliest evidence we have of herbs being added to wine," McGovern said. "The earliest previous evidence we had was an alcoholic beverage from China from around 1200 B.C. That one had possibly wormwood or chrysanthemum in it, or a tree resin."

There is no solid proof that the herbs were added for medicinal purposes, but the evidence points in that direction, McGovern said. "It could have been for flavoring, but we have a later literary tradition in Egypt of herbs added for medicinal purposes," he said. "It gets recorded in a medical papyrus in 1800 B.C., and now this goes back more than a thousand years earlier."

McGovern has been working on material from the tomb for many years. Scorpion 1 was entombed in Abydos, then the religious capitol of Egypt, about 150 miles south of Cairo.

"His tomb is one of the most spectacular from the earliest period," McGovern said. "It contained about 700 wines jars as well as food and clothing."

McGovern had done previous analyses of the same wine jar. The new report was based on highly sophisticated studies of residues in the jar, using techniques such as liquid chromatography mass spectrometry and solid phase microextraction. The initial analysis showed the presence of tartaric acid, and the latest analysis found residues of herbs.

The tradition of adding herbs to wine seems to have continued throughout early Egyptian history. A more recent wine jar, found in southern Egypt and traced to the 4th to 6th centuries A.D., was also laced with pine resin and rosemary, the researchers noted.

Medicinal use of wine could be expected because of the well-established practice of medicine in ancient Egypt. A 2005 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City was devoted entirely to medical practice in Egypt's Middle Kingdom, which flourished about 1900 B.C. The exhibit centered on ancient papyrus documents with instructions to physicians on wound healing, pain relief, and even the treatment of gynecologic or dental problems.

One expert was impressed with the new wine jar analysis.

"McGovern and co-workers have an amazing analytical accomplishment here," said Andrew L. Waterhouse, chair of the department of viticulture and enology (the study of wines) at the University of California, Davis. "These results further show that simple wine, as we know it, may not have been the most common beverage, but it was more often amended in many ways," he said.

Still, "it is difficult to know why the herbs were added," said Waterhouse, one of the world's leading authorities on ancient wines. "For medicinal purposes? To enhance the flavor? To cover up defects? All are possible."





More information

For more on wine and health, head to the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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                                  Study: Herbs added to 5,100-year-old Egyptian wine






RON TODT
The Associated Press
April 13, 2009
PHILADELPHIA

- Herbs have been detected in wine from the tomb of one of ancient Egypt's first rulers, many centuries before the civilization's known use of herbal remedies in alcoholic beverages, according to a study published Monday.

The findings from a wine jar dated to 5100 B.C. provide concrete evidence of ancient Egyptian organic medicine, which had only been ambiguously referred to in later papyrus documents, said Patrick McGovern of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, one of the researchers.

Tests on one of 700 jars buried with Scorpion I in his tomb at Abydos about 3100 B.C. confirmed that the vessel contained wine, according to the paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The tests also detected tree resin, which was used as a preservative and for medical purposes, and other chemicals that make up various herbs.

"There were a lot of additives in this wine, and it fits very well with the later Egyptian pharmacology texts, the medical papyri that describe similar kinds of alcoholic beverages with herbs in them," McGovern said.

"So the assumption is that, although we're 1500 years before the earliest medical papyrus, in fact we're looking at medicinal wine," he said.

Medical papyri, texts which describe ancient Egyptian medical procedures and practices, show that resins and herbs were added to wine, beer and water for use as pain relievers, laxatives, diuretics, or aphrodisiacs. Many of the ingredients are still part of the herbal medical tradition of the country, researchers said.

Herbs from the eastern Mediterranean that fit the chemicals found in the wine are coriander, balm, mint, sage, senna, germander, savory and thyme, McGovern said.

The researchers cannot positively identify herb or herb combinations found because unique biomarkers for them have not been identified. And although prescriptions recorded on papyrus give a detailed picture of the ancient Egyptian drug cabinet, more than 80 percent of the 160 plant names listed have yet to be translated.

"Our contention is that plant additives, including various herbs and tree resins, were already being dispensed via alcoholic beverages millennia earlier" than temple inscriptions had indicated, the paper concludes.

Robert K. Ritner, Professor of Egyptology at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, said Friday herbs and spices were also added for taste as well as health.

"I would not limit it specifically to medicinal uses; it certainly could have that, but there's no reason these wouldn't be spiced for flavor, like modern mulled wine," Ritner said.

McGovern said medical benefits of herbal wines seemed the most likely explanation. "You can't exclude the taste side of it, but we're at a time when people need to have some way to protect themselves from disease, cure themselves, and this was the primary way it was done," he said

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The Real Scorpion King
 

During an archaeological expedition in the late 1890’s, a ceremonial macehead was found depicting a king known as “Scorpion”. It comes from a time before the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, and shows the king wearing the white crown of Upper Egypt. The macehead had been decorated on all sides, but most has been badly damaged and is hard to read.

King Scorpion is shown holding a hoe, which may depict him preparing the fields or breaking away the dams in order to flood the fields. Not much is known about this king, and much speculation surrounds it.

One thing is certain, the real Scorpion King wasn’t half man and half arachnid, and he wasn’t a muscle bound professional wrestler.

He was a real king of Egypt.



http://www.ancienthistoryfacts.com/the-real-scorpion-king.php