Abstract
Scholars have for generations recognized the importance of wine production, distribution, and consumption in relation to second millennium BC palatial complexes in the Mediterranean and Near East. However, direct archaeological evidence has rarely been offered, despite the prominence of ancient viticulture in administrative clay tablets, visual media, and various forms of documentation. Tartaric and syringic acids, along with evidence for resination, have been identified in ancient ceramics, but until now the archaeological contexts behind these sporadic discoveries had been uneven and vague, precluding definitive conclusions about the nature of ancient viticulture. The situation has now changed. During the 2013 excavation season of the Kabri Archaeological Project, a rare opportunity materialized when forty large storage vessels were found in situ in an enclosed room located to the west of the central courtyard within the Middle Bronze Age Canaanite palace. A comprehensive program of organic residue analysis has now revealed that all of the relatively uniform jars contain evidence for wine. Furthermore, the enclosed context inherent to a singular intact wine cellar presented an unprecedented opportunity for a scientifically intensive study, allowing for the detection of subtle differences in the ingredients or additives within similar wine jars of apparently the same vintage. Additives seem to have included honey, storax resin, terebinth resin, cedar oil, cyperus, juniper, and perhaps even mint, myrtle, or cinnamon, all or most of which are attested in the 18th century BC Mari texts from Mesopotamia and the 15th century BC Ebers Papyrus from Egypt. These additives suggest a sophisticated understanding of the botanical landscape and the pharmacopeic skills necessary to produce a complex beverage that balanced preservation, palatability, and psychoactivity. This new study has resulted in insights unachievable in the past, which contribute to a greater understanding not only of ancient viticulture but also of Canaanite palatial economy.
Highlights
Tel Kabri is a 34-hectare site located in the western Galilee of modern-day Israel, five kilometers east of Nahariya
In order to verify this identification beyond a shadow of doubt, 5 mM standard reference samples (Figure 3) were prepared from commercially available standard compounds of both tartaric and syringic acids (Sigma-Aldrich), whose resultant spectra derived from the same gas chromatography in tandem with mass spectrometry (GC-MS) conditions were manually cross-referenced with the ancient samples (Figure 4, 5, 6)
Tartaric acid and syringic acid have been identified in earlier production and funerary deposits [10], [12], but the archaeological contexts behind these sporadic discoveries had been limited, precluding definitive conclusions about the nature of ancient viticulture, especially as it pertains to consumption
Summary
Tel Kabri is a 34-hectare site located in the western Galilee of modern-day Israel, five kilometers east of Nahariya. 1900–1600 BC), the site was the center of a major Canaanite polity, with a palace covering at least 6,000 sq.m., making it the largest Middle Bronze Age palace excavated so far in Israel [1]–[3]. During the 2013 excavations at Kabri, the remains of a palatial storage complex were uncovered, of which one room was excavated in its entirety. On the floor were the remains of approximately 40 restorable large, mostly handle-less, storage jars, as well as a few smaller vessels, all of which were found covered by a thick collapse of mudbricks from either the walls or the ceiling of the room (Figure 1). Before the systematic removal of the jars, samples from each were taken for organic residue analysis (ORA) and petrography; in addition, the fully articulated contents of the room were recorded using LiDAR, which collected millions of discrete three-dimensional data points and resulted in a surface plan accurate to within two mm (Figure 2)
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