16/02/2021
Environmental News February 15
Oldest hic brewery found in southern Egypt
A high-production brewery believed to be more than 5,000 years old has been uncovered by a team of archaeologists in southern Egypt.
The site, containing about 40 earthenware pots arranged in two rows, was uncovered at North Abydos, Sohag, by a joint Egyptian-American team.
‘’It is believed to date back to the era of King Narmer, who founded the First Dynasty and unified Upper and Lower Egypt,’’ says Mostafa Waziry, the secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, ‘’… and it is the oldest high-production brewery in the world.’’
British archaeologists first discovered the existence of the brewery in the early 1900s but its location was never precisely determined, until now.
According to Waziry, the brewery consisted of eight large areas that were used as units for beer production and each sector contained the 40 earthenware pots:
‘’A mixture of grains and water was heated in the vats, with each basin held in place by levers made of clay placed vertically in the form of rings,’’ Waziry says.
Archaeologist Matthew Adams of New York University, who headed the joint mission, believes that around 22,400 litres of beer could made at any one time.
"The brewery may have been built in this place specifically to supply the royal rituals that were taking place inside the funeral facilities of pharaohs,’’ Adams says, "… and there is evidence for the use of beer in sacrificial rites in these facilities too.’’
This is not the first ancient brewery found in the region, and fragments of pottery used to make beer and dating back 5,000 years were discovered on a building site in Tel Aviv in 2015.
Abydos, an ancient burial ground located in the desert west of the Nile River, more than 450km south of Cairo, has yielded many treasures over the years and is famous for its temples honoring Osiris, ancient Egypt’s god of underworld and the deity responsible for judging souls in the afterlife.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-14/egypt-unearths-oldest-mass-production-brewery-in-world/13153822
