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The origins of alcohol
Between 8000 and 3500 BCE, sometimes called the Neolithic Age, or the new Stone Age, humans made one of the biggest shifts in human history; they moved from hunting and gathering to agricultural production. The development of stable, permanent agricultural societies occurred over a period of thousands of years. The rise of agriculture meant that larger groups of people could live within a prescribed area, because agriculture could support more people per parcel of land than could hunting and gathering. These concentrated groups invented better tools and began writing for the first time, which led to a higher degree of social complexity.
Many authors argue that in addition to tools and writing, the use of alcohol in emerging civilizations represented a higher level of social sophistication. For example, Alexander Joffe in his article “Alcohol and Social Complexity in Ancient Western Asia” posits that “the production, exchange, and consumption of alcoholic beverages form a significant element and regularity in the emergence of complex, hierarchically organized societies, along with the restructuring of labor and gender relations.” For the major civilizations, then, one of the most important world events, the development of agriculture and the settling of societies, depended in part on the production, trade, consumption, and regulation of alcohol.
The very beginnings of human settlement show evidence of the domestication of grain and grape. Wild cereals and wild grapes grew in many areas. The existence of wild cereals facilitated the domestication of grains such as wheat and barley, which were used in the production of beer. Some historians argue that the production of beer even came before the production of bread. The argument asserts that the kind of wheat needed for bread did not exist during the beginnings of wheat cultivation. Evidence shows that the first kind of beer, however, was more like a nutritious gruel and had a very low alcohol content.
Humans produced wine during the Neolithic period, even before the domestication of grapes. Theoretically wine was easier to make than beer because merely crushing the grapes started the fermentation process for the wine. Humans improved grape vines through domestication in order to increase production and regulate the taste of the wine. Grape domestication normally occurred in an area where wild grapes already grew. The cultivators then chose the vines that produced the best grapes and focused on those vines, cloning the best plants to optimize the harvests in the future. Beer, on the other hand, required sprouting or chewing the grain and then spitting it into a container in order to obtain fermentation. Anthropologists have argued that discovering wine gave hunter-gatherers a strong incentive to settle down to tend their vines. In other words, wine making actually led to settlement.
Grapes were not the only fruit humans used to produce wine. One of the most important plants for producing wine was the date palm. Humans began cultivating the date palm around the same time as they did the grapevine. These two, plus olives and figs, constituted the first four cultivated fruits. Some archeologists argue that figs, domesticated around 9500 BCE, could have been used for fermented beverages, since we have evidence that they were used later on for such. All four of these first fruits were definitively under cultivation by the Chalcolithic period, which dated from 3700 to 3200 BCE.
Scholars still debate where the very first wine was made. Wild grapes grew from the east coast of Spain to France, Tadzhikistan, and in valleys in southwest Central Asia. Some of the first kinds of wine came from these wild grapes. Toward the end of the fifth-millennium BCE grape culture spread to the Aegean, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Egypt. Other early evidence for domestic grape cultivation comes from the Chalcolithic period (3700–3200 BCE) and the Early Bronze Age (3200–1900 BCE) in the Levant, Northwestern Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, and Syria, although newer information shows that the first wine came much earlier, around 7000 BCE in China.
Some scholars argue that the very first evidence of wine making in the Middle East comes from an area in Western Iran, called Hajji Firuz Tepe, located in the Zagros mountains. Evidence has been found there that dates to between 5400 and 5000 BCE. Remains from wine have also been discovered in another part of Iran, Godin Tepe, dating from 3500 to 3000 BCE. Other scholars argue that the grape may have been brought to Godin Tepe from the Transcaucasia, the area between Asia and Europe, now the area of Southeastern Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Still others argue that the earliest sign of wine making in the Aegean is from the end of the fifth millennium BCE, from eastern Macedonia in northern Greece. These grape pips, dating from 4460–4000 BCE, come from wild grapes or from plants at an early stage of domestication. Researchers also found waste products from wine production at Dikili Tash in Greece indicating that wild grapes were used for wine at the end of the fifth millennium-BCE. Moreover, pottery vessels have been discovered dating back to as early as around 6000 BCE. Therefore, people would have had the means to store juice that then fermented into wine. It is likely that grape growing for wine originated in many areas where a type of wine grape could easily be grown. In addition to evidence of wine production, evidence of alcohol consumption and accompanying feasting is found from the Early Bronze Age. For example, archeologists have found drinking vessels from around 3000 BCE.
Godin Tepe also shows remains of beer-drinking vessels. The beer was likely barley beer, and evidence shows that this was the earliest barley beer made in the world. Moreover, trading and likely political interchange took place between southern Mesopotamia and Godin Tepe because Godin was located on the very important East/West trade route between the Mediterranean and China, the Silk Road. This region is also known for the first writing system, the first code of law, and the first bureaucracy, linking the development of wine and beer production, trade, consumption, and regulation to these important social and political developments in the ancient world.
Moreover, alcohol influenced the development of the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, India, and the Americas. The production and sale of alcohol shaped gender as well as elite and lower-class identities. The consumption of alcohol structured everything from daily nutrition and medicine to social hierarchies and religious rituals, and the regulation of alcohol helped both to regulate trade as it spread and to support governments with taxes.
Two of the first civilizations in the Middle East, Egypt and Mesopotamia, also known as the river valley civilizations, developed along the Nile River and in the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers respectively. Egyptian culture was a more uniform culture. Mesopotamia, in contrast, was a disparate civilization, made up of many cultures, including the Sumerians, Akkadians, and Hittites. The characteristics of these two Pre-Classical societies included permanency, regional trade, social hierarchy, governmental regulation, and a religious belief system. The production, trade, consumption, and regulation of alcohol were infused in all of these societal characteristics. The production and trade of alcoholic beverages in Egypt and Mesopotamia facilitated the growth of the economies in those areas. The consumption patterns of alcohol in Mesopotamia and Egypt affected social formation, while the regulation of alcohol shaped political development in those areas.
Egypt
The production, trade, consumption, and regulation of alcohol significantly shaped the growing Egyptian civilization. Production of wine by elites and beer by commoners helped to define class differences. Trade of alcohol by women, both wine in taverns and beer in the market, helped to shape gender ideologies. Consumption of alcohol structured social gatherings, religious rituals, daily sustenance, and the composition of medicine. Social treatises on alcohol singled out particular groups, perpetuating the social hierarchy. Finally, regulations solidified the role of government in the creation of commercial standards, and taxes provided for the growth of government.
The River Valley civilization of Egypt was established after roughly 4000 BCE. Central to the stability of the civilization was its sustenance, especially the excess food production that allowed the civilization to flourish. Part of the food production included wine and beer. Alcohol became so important, in fact, that Egyptians created a god of wine, Dionysus. Egyptians first began purchasing wine from elsewhere before they began producing it themselves. Wild grapes did not grow naturally in Egypt; the dry climate made wine production more difficult. By 3000 BCE, however, vines were distributed throughout the Middle East and the eastern Mediterranean, making wine accessible to Egypt. Early evidence of wine comes from the tomb of an Egyptian king who lived around 3150 BCE; his tomb contained hundreds of wine jars with remnants of resin inside each of them. In virtually all cases, elites, such as kings and priests, cultivated wine in walled gardens, and there existed a royal winemaking industry in the Nile Delta. Domestic grape vines were fairly rare, labor intensive, and took several years to produce, therefore they needed a significant capital investment. In Egypt vineyards likely needed to be irrigated as well. These difficulties in production meant wine was a luxury item. Wine’s production and trade as a luxury item helped to diversify the economy in ancient Egypt and established wine use as a notable characteristic of elite culture.
Most Egyptian wines came from the area of the Delta, although little was exported because not enough was produced to export. Egyptians likely produced both white and red wines. Illustrations on tombs from the Old Kingdom show the beginnings of the wine-production industry. Egyptians made grape wine by putting grapes into vats and then treading on them in order to extract the juice. The vats were round in shape and large enough to hold four to six men to stomp the grapes. The vintner sometimes hired musicians to play while the men stomped. The stompers either held onto poles erected above the vats, or held onto the hips of each other to keep their balance. The grapes were about ankle deep in the vats, and the juice flowed out through a bung on the side of the vat into smaller vats. After the workers stomped most of the juice out of the grapes, they put the lees, or the dregs, into a cloth bag, then tied both ends of the cloth to poles and twisted the poles to wring out the last of the juice.
After pressing the juice, the workers strained it through cloth and put it into fermentation jars about two and a half feet tall, the insides of which had been smeared with resin. The resin aided in the preservation of the wine. The mouth of the fermentation jar had a rounded lip and was about 6 inches in diameter; while the body was about 10 inches at its widest. Sometimes the workers heated the jars to speed up the fermentation process. After fermentation, a vintner put the wine into decanters, small ones for religious use and larger ones for daily, household use. He then sealed the containers with straw and clay and stamped them with the official stamps, which had the year of the king’s rule, the district, the name of the wine, and sometimes the name of the vintner. Sometimes he poured the wine into skins, especially if the wine was to be carried long distances. Finally, by the time of the New Kingdom (1550–1069 BCE) the vintner impressed his imprimatur, or license, into the stopper. The first imprimatur became more and more detailed as the craft became more professionalized.
After sealing the wine the wine maker then drilled safety holes into the toppers or into the necks to prevent the containers from bursting. He then plugged them with straw, wax, or clay. After awhile he tasted the wine to assess its quality, and then marked the grade on the lids. Wine was labeled good, twice good, three times good, and sweet, twice sweet, and so on. Labeling also told the age of the wine. Other kinds of labeling included wine for taxes and wine for offerings, both indicating that wine had become profitable for the government and important in religious rituals. Finally, the vessels, tapered at the end, were stored leaning and stacked against a wall.
Egyptian wine did not last long; people drank it within a year. It was also very sweet because the sugar content of the grapes was very high. High sugar content occurred because of the dry climate, which meant the grapes were probably shriveled and therefore they could not ferment all the sugar into alcohol and they remained sweet. In addition to regular sweet wine, Egyptians made mixed or spiced wines, flavoring them with juices, herbs, and spices. Egyptians also made palm wine. Palm wine came from oases and palm-growing areas. People tapped into the top of a date palm tree to gather its sap. The sap fermented very quickly because of the hot weather.
Wine was not only made for personal use, but it was also sold in taverns. Most tavern owners as well as tavern employees were women, and many of the women who worked in taverns were prostitutes. As a result, taverns had reputations as houses of prostitution and any woman associated with a tavern was suspect. So as early as ancient Egypt, society began to stereotype as immoral most women who associated with alcohol, especially in public. This same correlation was not applied to men, of course, and elite women, by virtue of their class, escaped the characterization in Egypt.
In addition to wine, beer, too, had an impact on Egyptian society. The beginnings of beer go back to around the fourth-millennium BCE. By 3000 BCE beer was more widespread and in larger production than wine. Beer could be made at any time, unlike wine, which could only be made during the grape harvest. And beer, like bread, could be made in people’s homes. Moreover, the grain could be stored and was more portable than grapes. Unlike modern beer, the beer of ancient Egypt was more like food. It was made from either red, white, or black barley, or emmer wheat, and was opaque, thick, and more like soup or gruel. Making barley beer began with moistening barley and laying it out for one day, then moistening it and drying it again while it was in a vessel. After it dried, the beer maker shook it in the sun until it fell apart. Then he or she ground it and made it into loaves adding leaven to make it rise. Workers cooked it for just a little while and then dissolved sweetened water into it and pushed it through a sieve.
Another way to make beer consisted of pouring moistened grain into a mortar, grinding it, adding yeast, then cooking the dough over a slow fire until it was partially baked. Next, the beer maker broke the partially baked bread into pieces and left them to soak in water for several days. He or she then placed the pieces into large human-sized fermentation vats and stomped them into gruel, poured the gruel into a wide-woven basket that was placed over a large jar, and then kneaded it so the liquid could flow through the basket into the jar. Next the maker poured the liquid into large beer jars, sometimes adding dates or date juice to flavor the beer and sugar for fermentation. The beer usually did not have a high alcohol content, perhaps between 4 and 5 percent, although because it was brewed in each home the alcohol content could vary. In the later dynasties, when money came into use, women sold beer in the markets to both men and women. Since women made beer at home for their families, they likely made an excess of beer to sell in the markets. Egyptian society normalized women’s roles as beer makers, easily accepting their transition into beer peddlers. The almost exclusive involvement of women in beer production and trade characterized those activities as feminine, creating a defining feature of female gender identity, which in this case was not sexually related.
In addition to influencing gender identity, alcohol in ancient Egypt structured social occasions and religious ceremonies, and prominently figured in daily sustenance and medicine. Elite Egyptians entertained with wine. Many depictions exist of elite banquets where excessive wine drinking took place by both elite men and women. H. F. Lutz’s Viticulture and Brewing in the Ancient Orient describes a typical party. To begin, a wooden image of a dead person was paraded around the gathering to show that death could come at any time so one should enjoy oneself while it was still possible. Taking their cue from the performance, guests felt free to overindulge in wine. Tomb paintings show that both elite men and women drank to excess; they display pictures of passed out men being carried away by their servants and women vomiting while their heads were held by their female servants. One elite woman was reported to have said “Give me eighteen cups of wine … don’t you see I want to get drunk! My insides are as dry as straw.” Society saw wine consumption, even excessive consumption, as a characteristic of the rich, helping to define elite identity, an identity that categorized women by their privilege before their gender.
Wine also shaped Egyptian religion. Many myths surrounded wine in Egypt. Egyptians believed that the reproduction of the vine was the work of the god Osiris, representing his rebirth. Ancient Egyptians commonly offered up wine to the gods. Festivals for the god Dionysus as well as for other gods featured wine. During the New Kingdom when Egypt was very wealthy as a result of Thutmose III, alcohol use during religious festivals soared. The king granted more money to the priests to provide wine for daily temple rituals; and bread and beer were also required twice a day as offerings to the dead god-king at funeral temples. Priests poured wine libations onto the ground as well as drank much of the wine themselves. Staff members of the temples as well as priests and others consumed large quantities of beer in the daily temple rituals as well as in the temple festivals. The annual cat-goddess festival, which drew worshipers from all over Egypt, included excessive alcoholic celebrations by men, women, and children. One of the subsequent kings, Akhenaton, had a yearly festival dedicated to the god Amon for which the king took a state journey to his temple at Karnak. The yearly ritual could last up to a month, and both beer and wine were drunk to excess during the entire festival.
Beer, too, held symbolic meaning in Egypt. For example, the feline goddess Hathor-Sekhmet was supposedly appeased with red-dyed beer in order to save humans from her rage. She was credited with the origin of beer, and her temple was known as the “house of drunkenness.” Moreover, Egyptians believed that when men dreamed about beer, each dream held a special meaning. If a man dreamed of sweet beer it was good luck. If he dreamed of bakery beer he would live a long life, or if he dreamed of stored beer he would be healed if sick. If a man dreamed of drinking warm beer he would soon be suffering, or if he dreamed of brewing beer in his own home he would soon be banished fr...
