The world's earliest known ancient wine jar (more than 7000 years old, ca. 5400-5000 B.C.) and a similarly dated sherd from another reconstructed wine jar are now on display in the exhibit Tokens to Tablets: Glimpses Into 6000 Years of the History of the Ancient Near East in the Mesopotamian gallery of the Museum. Both the jar and the sherd were made famous by widespread international media attention following a June Nature magazine article about the discovery of wine residue on the sherd. The news also placed the Museum in the Guinness World Records.
A Remarkable Discovery... In a serendipitous case of media attention spurring on a discovery, Museum archaeochemist Dr. Patrick McGovern, a researcher in the Museum Applied Science Center for Archaeology, discovered that the complete jar, which had been on display in one of the Museum's ancient Near East galleries, also had a wine residue. The jar, which was originally found near the sherd, was taken off display to be photographed with Dr. McGovern by the London-based Science Photo Library. Asked by the photographer to look down at the pot for the photograph, Dr. McGovern exclaimed, "There appears to be a reddish residue inside the jar!" Later testing confirmed that the residue was indeed an ancient wine deposit with a terebinth tree resin additive; this was the same result that had been obtained in testing the sherd. Both the pottery jar and the sherd were recovered in 1968 from the "kitchen" of a mud- brick Neolithic building at Hajji Firuz Tepe, Iran - a site excavated by a University of Pennsylvania Museum expedition under the direction of Dr. Mary M. Voigt (as part of the Museum's Hasanlu Project, 1956-1977). Four similar jars were found with these, set into the floor along a wall of the "kitchen." They each had a volume of about 9 liters (2.5 gallons). Analysis of Residue Reveals Ancient Winemaking Secrets...When a yellowish residue was noted on the sherd, which had come from the bottom third of a jar, Dr. McGovern was asked to chemically analyze the residue. Working with Museum volunteers Dr. Donald L. Glusker and Lawrence J. Exner, Dr. McGovern analyzed the absorbed material in the pottery fabric as well as the yellowish residue, using infrared spectrometry, liquid chromatography and wet chemical techniques. McGovern and his team found a combination of tartaric acid and calcium tartrate from grapes, and the yellowish oleoresin of the Pistacia atlantica Desf. terebinth tree. This resin was an additive that helped to preserve the wine and cover up any off-tastes and odors. Modern Greek retsina wine represents a carry-over of this tradition in the modern world. It is not known whether the wild grape (Vitis vinifera sylvestris) was exploited to make the wine or if the domesticated grape (V. vinifera vinifera), from which almost all the wine in the world today is made, had already been developed. Analysis of the complete jar's residue - which was reddish, not yellowish - was carried out in June. It also tested positive for wine and terebinth tree resin. Dr. McGovern cannot yet ascertain if the reddish color of the residue indicates for certain that this was red wine, but he is working on new methods to determine this. This new evidence of our ancient past belongs to the period when the first permanent human settlements were being established, and pottery appears for the first time. These discoveries, thus, have important implications for our understanding of the origins of viniculture (wine making) and viticulture (the cultivation of grapes), as well as for the development of modern diet, medical practices and society generally. |
