According to a team of archaeologists who have analyzed samples from about 40 large wine jars found in a 3,700-year-old Canaanite royal wine cellar at the archaeological site of Tel Kabri in Israel, Canaanite winemakers used honey, cedar oil, cyperus, juniper, storax resin, terebinth resin, and possibly mint, myrtle and cinnamon, as additives to wine for flavor enhancement.
Ruins of the 3,700-year-old wine cellar unearthed at Tel Kabri. Image credit: Eric Cline / George Washington University.
Tel Kabri is an important archaeological site located in the western Galilee, 5 km east of Nahariya.
During the Middle Bronze Age (1900-1600 BC), the site was the center of a big Canaanite settlement, with a royal palace covering at least 6,000 m2, making it the largest Middle Bronze Age palace excavated so far in Israel.
An excavation of the palace in 2013 yielded the spectacular discovery of a 3,700-year-old palatial wine cellar with about 40 large, mostly handle-less, storage jars, as well as a few smaller vessels.
“The large total volume of the stored wine – up to 2,000 liters – and the context of this storeroom, next to a ceremonial room within the palace in which banquets might have been held, may contribute to a greater understanding of Canaanite court ceremony and economy,” said Dr Andrew Koh from Brandeis University, a team member and the lead author of a paper published in the journal PLoS ONE.
“Although 2,000 liters – or the equivalent of 3,000 modern bottles of wine – may seem like a lot, it is not enough for wide-spread distribution and should probably be seen as directly related to consumption within the palace rather than to either production or distribution; in other words, we may have here the private reserve of the ruler and his household.”
Dr Koh and his colleagues using gas chromatography in tandem with mass spectrometry analyzed the contents of each of the 40 wine jars and confirmed that all of them contained chemical compounds indicative of wine.
The scientists also identified a number of wine ingredients, including honey, storax resin, terebinth resin, cedar oil, cyperus, juniper, and possibly mint, myrtle, and cinnamon.
They suggest the detection of these ingredients and additives indicates that Canaanites had a sophisticated understanding of plants and skills necessary to produce a complex beverage.
_____
Koh AJ et al. 2014. Characterizing a Middle Bronze Palatial Wine Cellar from Tel Kabri, Israel. PLoS ONE 9 (8): e106406; doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0106406
