BEER, WINE AND DRINKS IN ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA

DRINKING IN ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA

Lion-shaped rhyton Evidence of winemaking from fourth millennium B.C. (the late Uruk period) has been found in the city-states of Uruk and Tello in southern Iraq and the Elamite capital of Susa in Iran. The Babylonians and Egyptians found that if they crushed grapes or warmed and moisten grain, the covered mush would bubble and produce drink with a kick. Ancient beer was thick and nutritious. The fermentation process added essential B vitamins and amino acids converted from yeast.╒

Mesopotamians drank beer and wine but seemed to have preferred beer. By some estimates 40 percent of the wheat from Sumerian harvest went to make beer. Thus lends credence to the beer theory, that man switched to agriculture so that people could to settle down and grow grain so they sit around and drink beer together on small villages.

It has been argued that beer was preferred over wine because beer-producing barley grows better in the hot, dry climate of southern Iraq than wine-producing grapes. Cylinder seals from the Early Dynastic period (2900-2350 B.C.) show monarchs and the courtiers drinking beer from large jars with straws. Another beverage, possibly wine, was consumed from hand-held cups and goblets.

For hangovers the Assyrians consumed a mixture of ground bird’s beaks and myrrh according to Time magazine. Cuneiform tablets show allocations of beer and wine for royal occasions. One tablet from northeastern Syria allocates 80 liters of the "best quality beer" to honor "the man from Babylon." By 700 B.C., the Phrgyians in present-day Turkey were drinking a alcoholic beverage made from wine, barley beer and honey mead.

Book: “The Oldest Cuisine in the World” by French historian Jean Bottéro was published in French in 2002, in English in 2004 and as a paperback in 2011; “The Silk Road Gourmet, Vol. 1, Western and Southern Asia” by Laura Kelley Websites: Laura Kelley, Saudi Aramco World in 2012, (http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/201206/new.flavors.for.the.oldest.recipes.htm); Ancient Food ancientfoods.wordpress.com ; Silk Road Gourmet website silkroadgourmet.com/tag/mesopotamia ; Near Eastern Scholars such as Jean Bottéro , Jack Sasson and Piotr Steinkeller are knowledgeable about Mesopotamian food.

Websites on Mesopotamia: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Mesopotamia sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; International Association for Assyriology iaassyriology.com ; Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, University of Chicago isac.uchicago.edu ; University of Chicago Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations nelc.uchicago.edu ; University of Pennsylvania Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations (NELC) nelc.sas.upenn.edu; Penn Museum Near East Section penn.museum; Ancient History Encyclopedia ancient.eu.com/Mesopotamia ; British Museum britishmuseum.org ; Louvre louvre.fr/en/explore ; Metropolitan Museum of Art metmuseum.org/toah ; Ancient Near Eastern Art Metropolitan Museum of Art metmuseum.org; Iraq Museum theiraqmuseum ABZU etana.org/abzubib; Archaeology Websites Archaeology News Report archaeologynewsreport.blogspot.com ; Anthropology.net anthropology.net : archaeologica.org archaeologica.org ; Archaeology in Europe archeurope.com ; Archaeology magazine archaeology.org ; HeritageDaily heritagedaily.com; Live Science livescience.com/

Beer in Mesopotamia

Akkadian man with a cup, around 2200 BC

Beer not only existed at the time of the Sumerians it was widely consumed and an important part of Sumerian culture. Scholars have said that beer was the most popular beverage in Mesopotamia because it was “safer” and “maybe tastier than water.” The Sumerian word for beer appears over and over in cuneiform tablets, in many contexts relating to religion, medicine and myth. [Source: Mark Miller, ancient-origins.net, February 1, 2015]

Beer, called sikaru, was probably from some cereal grain. An inventory of goods to be handed over to the slave Khunnatu, in the sixth year of Cambyses, includes fifty casks of “good beer,” which, together with the cup with which it was drawn, was valued at 60 shekels (£9). [Source: “Babylonians And Assyrians: Life And Customs”, Rev. A. H. Sayce, Professor of Assyriology at Oxford, 1900]

Mark Miller wrote in ancient-origins.net, “The production of beer in Mesopotamia is a controversial topic in archaeological circles. Some believe that beer was discovered by accident and that a piece of bread or grain could have become wet and a short time later, it began to ferment into an inebriating pulp. However, others believe that the technique of brewing beer was an early technological achievement and may have even predated the Sumerians in the lowlands of the Mesopotamian alluvial plane.”

Early Textual Evidence and Iconography of Beer in Ancient Mesopotamia

The oldest evidence of beer comes from a 6,000-year-old Sumerian tablet show people drinking a beverage through reed straws from a communal bowl. The oldest known beer recipe is in a 3,900-year-old Sumerian poem honoring Ninkasi, the goddess of brewing, fertility and the harvest. The poem describes how bappir (Sumerian bread) is mixed with “aromatics” in a big vat to generate fermentation.

Joshua Rapp wrote in Smithsonian magazine: ““Archaeologists have long known beer has been around in Mesopotamia from iconography which showed beer drinking and references to the beverage in old accounting texts describing beer given as rations. Among the best known examples are those found in the Sumerian Hymn to Ninkasi dating to roughly 1800 B.C. A beer recipe in the form of a poem, the text praises the beer goddess Ninkasi for soaking malt in a jar and spreading mash on reed mats, among other things. The hymn also notes the wonderful feeling and blissful mood of drinking beer. [Source: Joshua Rapp, Smithsonianmag.com, August 13, 2018]

“Further references to beer can be found in the Epic of Gilgamesh — a Mesopotamian poem considered the oldest surviving work of literature — in which Enkidu, a “wild man” who grew up in the forest, drinks seven jugs of beer and decides he likes civilization enough to become Gilgamesh’s sidekick. “[Beer] is a quintessential Mesopotamian food stuff,” says Claudia Glatz, a senior lecturer in archaeology at the University of Glasgow, Glatz. “Everyone drank it but it also has a social significance in ritual practices. It really defines Mesopotamian identities in many ways.”

According to iconography and excavations from around the third millennium B.C. Mesopotamian sites beer at that time was usually consumed from straws in a larger communal jar But in the subsequent millennium, these larger beer jugs start to give way to individual vessels. “We have this explosion of a very diverse range of drinking cups,” Glatz says, adding that archaeologists in the past assumed the “daintier vessels” were used for wine. But their chemical analysis shows they held beer.

Residue on 2,500-Year-Old Cups — Oldest Direct Evidence of Beer in Mesopotamia

Kassite god pouring life-giving water

In 2018, in a study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, archaeologists announced they had found some of the earliest chemical evidence of beer — in cups excavated at Khani Masi in northern Iraq. The researchers said they went through great pains to make the cups were not contaminated the cups with modern compounds.Joshua Rapp wrote in Smithsonian magazine: “Archaeologists have long known beer was important in the ancient world, but mainly from writings and drawings — finding actual archaeological evidence of the fermented beverage has been a major challenge. But archaeologists have now employed a new technique to detect beer residues in nearly 2,500-year-old clay cups dug up in a site in northern Iraq. [Source: Joshua Rapp, Smithsonianmag.com, August 13, 2018]

“What Elsa [Perruchini] has demonstrated is the chemical signature of fermentation in the vessels that also contains the chemical signatures consistent with barley,” says Glatz“Putting those together is the interpretation that this is barley beer.” The use of the technique will likely prove groundbreaking, giving archaeologists a chance to find beer at other excavations. But it is also helping Glatz and Perruchini, a PhD archaeology student at the university and the lead author of the study, understand more about the Babylonian Empire’s outer reaches during a period of cultural upheaval.

“The earliest physical trace of beer dates back to the late fourth millennium B.C. in present day Iran at a site called Godin Tepe, where archaeologists found what is known as beerstone, a chemical byproduct related to the brewing process and visible to the eye, on ancient ceramic material.

“But Perruchini got downright microscopic, examining the chemicals present in the residues clinging to the clay of old cups and jars. She and Glatz are involved with a larger archaeological project at the site, called Khani Masi, exploring the evidence of imperial expansion of the Babylonians into the Diyala River valley. The area, in present day Kurdistan in northern Iraq, is key because it formed a travel hub, connecting the lowlands where some of the world’s first cities and imperial powers were formed with the resource-rich Zagros Mountains.

“The excavated section of Khani Masi Perruchini and Glatz are working on dates from 1415 B.C. to 1290 B.C., the late Bronze Age, according to the material evidence such as pottery and the evidence of burial practices excavated. Perruchini was interested in seeing how the people who lived in the area identified culturally, and what better way to get to the bottom of this than examining the food and drink they consumed?

Mesopotamian Workers Paid in Beer, a 5,000-Year-Old Uruk Tablet Shows

A tablet from Uruk in possession of the British Museum, dated around 3100 to 3000 B.C., shows. That Mesopotamian workers were paid in beer. According to the New Scientist the tablet is the world’s oldest paycheck. “On one tablet excavated from (Uruk) we can see a human head eating from a bowl, meaning ‘ration,’ and a conical vessel, meaning ‘beer,’” Alison George wrote in New Scientist. “Scattered around are scratches recording the amount of beer for a particular worker.” [Source: By Michael Shulman, Insight, June 28, 2016]

Mesopotamia is not the only place in ancient history where workers receiving beer for performing work. In ancient Egypt, construction workers received a “daily ration of four to five liters” of the golden liquid. There are also records of poet and the “Father of English literature” Geoffrey Chaucher receiving a yearly salary of 252 gallons of wine from Richard II.

Hymn to Ninkasi, with a Recipe for Making Beer

tablet for beer, oil and bread, 2100 BC

The Hymn to Ninkasi, inscribed on a nineteenth-century B.C. tablet, contains a recipe for Sumerian beer. It goes:
Borne of the flowing water (...)
Tenderly cared for by the Ninhursag,
Borne of the flowing water (...)
Tenderly cared for by the Ninhursag,
Having founded your town by the sacred lake,
She finished its great walls for you,
Ninkasi, having founded your town by the sacred lake,

She finished its great walls for you Your father is Enki, Lord Nidimmud,
Your mother is Ninti, the queen of the sacred lake,
Ninkasi, Your father is Enki, Lord Nidimmud,
Your mother is Ninti, the queen of the sacred lake.
You are the one who handles the dough,
[and] with a big shovel,
Mixing in a pit, the bappir with sweet aromatics,
Ninkasi, You are the one who handles
the dough, [and] with a big shovel,
Mixing in a pit, the bappir with [date]-honey.

You are the one who bakes the bappir
in the big oven,
Puts in order the piles of hulled grains,
Ninkasi, you are the one who bakes
the bappir in the big oven,
Puts in order the piles of hulled grains,
You are the one who waters the malt
set on the ground,
The noble dogs keep away even the potentates,
Ninkasi, you are the one who waters the malt
set on the ground,
The noble dogs keep away even the potentates.

You are the one who soaks the malt in a jar
The waves rise, the waves fall.
Ninkasi, you are the one who soaks
the malt in a jar
The waves rise, the waves fall.
You are the one who spreads the cooked
mash on large reed mats,
Coolness overcomes.
Ninkasi, you are the one who spreads
the cooked mash on large reed mats,
Coolness overcomes.

You are the one who holds with both hands
the great sweet wort,
Brewing [it] with honey and wine
(You the sweet wort to the vessel)
Ninkasi, (...)
(You the sweet wort to the vessel)
The filtering vat, which makes
a pleasant sound,
You place appropriately on [top of]
a large collector vat.
Ninkasi, the filtering vat,
which makes a pleasant sound,
You place appropriately on [top of]
a large collector vat.

When you pour out the filtered beer
of the collector vat,
It is [like] the onrush of
Tigris and Euphrates.
Ninkasi, you are the one who pours out the
filtered beer of the collector vat,
It is [like] the onrush of
Tigris and Euphrates.
[Source: Translation by Miguel Civil, J.A. Black, G. Cunningham, E. Robson, and G. Zlyomi 1998, 1999, 2000, Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, Oxford University, Babylonia Index, piney.com]

What Did Ancient Mesopotamian Beer Taste Like

Alulu beer receipt

“Without a fridge handy, the stuff wouldn’t have lasted very long. “Mesopotamians would have been brewing beer constantly,” Glatz says.

Joshua Rapp wrote in Smithsonian magazine: ““The question on everyone’s minds, of course, is how the beer tasted. Perruchini and more of Glatz’s students are attempting to find out by brewing beer using techniques described in the Hymn to Ninkasi and ingredients which they think would lead to residues similar to those they’ve found at Khani Masi. [Source: Joshua Rapp, Smithsonianmag.com, August 13, 2018]

“The trouble is, there were a number of types of beer described in old Mesopotamian texts, whether golden, red or dark ales, and Perruchini and her colleagues are uncertain of all the ingredients. Unlike other researchers who recently tried to reproduce 4,000-year old Hittite beer with tasty results, Perruchini says that they have not even tasted the stuff they brewed in their class yet. “It smells so terrible,” she says

Replicating Mesopotamian Beer

Great Lakes Brewery in Ohio has worked with archaeologists in Chicago to replicate Sumerian beer, using an ancient recipe. Miller wrote: “Beginning in 2012, Great Lakes tried to replicate the Sumerian beer using only a wooden spoon and clay vessels modeled after artifacts excavated in Iraq. They successfully malted barley on the roof of the brew house and also used a bricklike “beer bread” for the active yeast. Current results have yielded a beer full of bacteria, warm and slightly sour.”

San-Francisco-based Anchor Brewing Company has produced a reproduction of ancient Sumarian beer called Ninkasi after the Sumarian goddess of beer, based the hymn “Hymn to Ninkasi” narrated above. Dr. Solomon Katz of the University of Pennsylvania and Fritz Maytag of Anchor Brewing worked to decipher the brewing clues contained within the hymn to make the beverage

On his effort to produce ancient beer in his kitchen,Ed Hitchcock wrote in BrewingTechniques: “We know barley has been cultivated for at least 9000 years (4). I wondered what a beer of that era would have been like, a beer that is more than twice as old as the recipe reproduced from the Sumarian hymn. I decided to try some simple qualitative experiments in my kitchen. I managed not only to produce a beer that could have been made over 9000 years ago, but also to explore the intimate link between beer and bread. These experiments led me to the conclusion that the argument over the primacy of bread vs. beer is as academic as that of the chicken vs. egg. [Source: Ed Hitchcock, BrewingTechniques’ September/October 1994 \=]

“To set the stage for the origins of beer, consider the other uses of grain. Undoubtedly the first use of grain, before either bread or beer, was to make gruel (2). Bread is effectively a cooked dense gruel and comes in three basic types. Unleavened bread, such as the tortilla, is the simplest form. It requires pulverized grain (flour) and water and is baked on a hot stone. It has a small volume and requires little in terms of ingredients. Leavened bread, with which we are most familiar, requires a large volume of flour, water, a source of sugars, and yeast. A third and less well known, bread is made from sprouted grains. The grains are sprouted, ground to paste, and baked in a loaf. The resultant loaf is very dense, sweet and cakelike, and is in effect a kilned malt. One could argue endlessly on the basis of parsimony, culture, and archaeological evidence over the order of appearance of breads and beer. Whether sprouted bread was a derivative of sprouted gruel or unleavened bread may never be known. What we can be certain of is that people 10,000 years ago experimented with ways to consume grain. Somewhere in these experiments they discovered beer. \=\

Wine in Ancient Mesopotamia

Wine was made from dates as well as from grapes Mention is found of a “wine” that was made from sesame. The vine was not a native of Babylonia, but must have been introduced into it from the highlands of Armenia at a very early date, as it was known there long before the days of Sargon of Akkad. Large quantities of wine and beer were drunk in both Babylonia and Assyria, and reference has already been made to the bas-relief in which the Assyrian King, Assur-bani-pal, and his Queen are depicted drinking wine in the gardens of his palace, while the head of his vanquished foe, the King of Elam, hangs from the branch of a neighboring tree. [Source: “Babylonians And Assyrians: Life And Customs”, Rev. A. H. Sayce, Professor of Assyriology at Oxford, 1900]

A receipt, dated the eleventh day of Iyyar, in the first year of Nabonidos, is for the conveyance of “75 qas of meal and 63 qas of beer for the sustenance of the artisans;” and in the thirtyeighth year of Nebuchadnezzar 20 shekels were paid for “beer,” the amount of which, however, is unfortunately not stated. But two “large” casks of new wine cost 11 shekels, and five other smaller casks 10 shekels.

Whether any grape-wine was made in Babylonia itself was questionable; at any rate, the greater part of that which was drunk there was imported from abroad, more especially from Armenia and Syria. The wines of the Lebanon were specially prized, the wine of Khilbunu, or Helbon, holding a chief place among them. The wines, some of which were described as “white,” were distinguished by the names of the localities where they were made or in which the vines were grown, and Nebuchadnezzar gives the following list of them: The wine of Izalla, in Armenia; of Tuhimmu, of Zimmini, of Helbon, of Amabanu, of the Shuhites, of Bit-Kubati, in Elam; of Opis and of Bitati, in Armenia. To these another list adds: “The wine reserved for the king's drinking,” and the wines of Nazahzê, of Lahû, and of the Khabur.

King Ashurbanipal and his queen enjoying a cup of wine in the garden. 7th century BC

Royal Wine Cellars in Ancient Mesopotamia

Wine in some places in ancient Mesopotamia was kept in wine-cellars, and among the Assyrian letters that have come down to us are some from the cellarers of the King. In one of them it is stated that the wine received in the month Tebet had been bottled, and that there was no room in the royal cellars in which it could be stored. The King is therefore asked to allow new cellars to be made.

In one letter about some wine that was sent to the royal cellars, writer says: “As for the wine about which the king my lord has written to me, there are two homers of it for keeping, as well as plenty of the best oil.” Later on, in the same letter, reference is made to a targu-manu, or “dragoman,” who was sent along with the wine, which probably came from the Armenian highlands. It may be noted that in another letter mention is made of a “master of languages,” who was employed in deciphering the despatches from Ararat. [Source: “Babylonians And Assyrians: Life And Customs”, Rev. A. H. Sayce, Professor of Assyriology at Oxford, 1900]

A letter from the cellarers of the palace has been translated as follows by Dr. Johnston: “To the king our lord, thy servants … Bel-iqisa and Babi-lû: Salutation to the king our lord! May Assur, … Bel, and Nebo grant long life and everlasting years to the king our lord! Let the king our lord know that the wine received during the month Tebet has been bottled, but that there is no room for it, so we must make (new) cellars for the king our lord. Let the king our lord give orders that a (place for) the cellars be shown to us, and we shall be relieved from our embarrassment (?). The wine that has come for the king our lord is very considerable. Where shall we put it?”

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Mesopotamia sourcebooks.fordham.edu , National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, especially Merle Severy, National Geographic, May 1991 and Marion Steinmann, Smithsonian, December 1988, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Discover magazine, Times of London, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, BBC, Encyclopædia Britannica, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Time, Newsweek, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “History of Warfare” by John Keegan (Vintage Books); “History of Art” by H.W. Janson Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.

Last updated July 2024