King Tut Drank Red Wine
Oct. 26th, 2005 02:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anam_moonThis is an interesting article about King Tut and Ancient Wine Making. It's amazing the little details that science can sometimes uncover about the lives of people during ancient times.
Archaeologists may have finally discovered the wine favoured by Egyptian boy Pharaoh, Tutankhamen.
Researchers from the University of Barcelona have said that King Tut preferred red wine to white and was buried with jars of finest red wine (amphorae) at the time of his mummification, as ancient Egyptians believed in the good afterlife, adding that the wine of his choice was Year 5.
"Wine jars were placed in tombs as funerary meals. The New Kingdom wine jars were labelled with product, year, source and even the name of the vine grower but they did not mention the colour of the wines they contained," said Maria Rosa Guasch-Jane, a master in Egyptology at the University of Barcelona.
"Year 5, it seems, was a good vintage, one clearly destined for laying down. One of the samples came from an amphora in King Tut's tomb with the inscription: 'Year 5. Wine of the House-of-Tutankhamun Ruler-of-the- Southern-On, l.p.h (in) the Western River. By the chief vintner Khaa'," she added.
For their study, the Spanish researchers analysed trace residues taken from the scrapings of three jars owned by the British Museum and three from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo (two of them from Tutankhamun's collection).
Putting the residues from one of the jars under the microscope, Ms Guasch-Jane and Rosa M. Lamuela-Raventos, a professor of nutrition and food science, developed the first technique capable of determining the colour of wine stored in ancient amphorae.
Using liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry, researchers found traces of tartaric acid, a compound with few natural sources other than grapes but that did not tell them whether the wine was red or white. They then tested part of a wine jar for the chemical that imparts colour to red wine, malvidin-3-glucoside and since direct testing for the substance was not feasible, the scientists exposed the sample to a basic solution that causes malvidin to break down into syringic acid, which is detectable, reports The Independent.
"This method led us for the first time not only to identify the presence of wine but also to reveal the red grape origin of the wine contained in a jar belonging to the tomb of King Tut," said Ms Guasch-Jani.
Archaeologists may have finally discovered the wine favoured by Egyptian boy Pharaoh, Tutankhamen.
Researchers from the University of Barcelona have said that King Tut preferred red wine to white and was buried with jars of finest red wine (amphorae) at the time of his mummification, as ancient Egyptians believed in the good afterlife, adding that the wine of his choice was Year 5.
"Wine jars were placed in tombs as funerary meals. The New Kingdom wine jars were labelled with product, year, source and even the name of the vine grower but they did not mention the colour of the wines they contained," said Maria Rosa Guasch-Jane, a master in Egyptology at the University of Barcelona.
"Year 5, it seems, was a good vintage, one clearly destined for laying down. One of the samples came from an amphora in King Tut's tomb with the inscription: 'Year 5. Wine of the House-of-Tutankhamun Ruler-of-the- Southern-On, l.p.h (in) the Western River. By the chief vintner Khaa'," she added.
For their study, the Spanish researchers analysed trace residues taken from the scrapings of three jars owned by the British Museum and three from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo (two of them from Tutankhamun's collection).
Putting the residues from one of the jars under the microscope, Ms Guasch-Jane and Rosa M. Lamuela-Raventos, a professor of nutrition and food science, developed the first technique capable of determining the colour of wine stored in ancient amphorae.
Using liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry, researchers found traces of tartaric acid, a compound with few natural sources other than grapes but that did not tell them whether the wine was red or white. They then tested part of a wine jar for the chemical that imparts colour to red wine, malvidin-3-glucoside and since direct testing for the substance was not feasible, the scientists exposed the sample to a basic solution that causes malvidin to break down into syringic acid, which is detectable, reports The Independent.
"This method led us for the first time not only to identify the presence of wine but also to reveal the red grape origin of the wine contained in a jar belonging to the tomb of King Tut," said Ms Guasch-Jani.
