UNCORKING THE PAST
UNCORKING THE PAST
THE QUEST FOR WINE, BEER, AND OTHER
ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES
PATRICK E. McGOVERN
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University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
© 2009 by The Regents of the University of California
First Paperback Printing 2010
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McGovern, Patrick E.
Uncorking the past : the quest for wine, beer, and other alcoholic beverages / Patrick E. McGovern.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN: 978-0-520-26798-5 (pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Alcoholic beverages—History. 2. Alcoholic beverages—Social aspects. 3. Drinking of alcoholic beverages—History. 4. Drinking of alcoholic beverages—Social aspects. I. Title.
GT2884.M36 2009
394.1'3—dc22
2009010512
Manufactured in the United States of America
18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
This book is printed on Cascades Enviro 100, a 100% post consumer waste, recycled, de-inked fiber. FSC recycled certified and processed chlorine free. It is acid free, Ecologo certified, and manufactured by BioGas energy.
To the innovative fermented-beverage
makers of our species
CONTENTS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PREFACE
1 / Homo Imbibens: I Drink, Therefore I Am
2 / Along the Banks of the Yellow River
3 / The Near Eastern Challenge
4 / Following the Silk Road
5 / European Bogs, Grogs, Burials, and Binges
6 / Sailing the Wine-Dark Mediterranean
7 / The Sweet, the Bitter, and the Aromatic in the New World
8 / Africa Serves Up Its Meads, Wines, and Beers
9 / Alcoholic Beverages: Whence and Whither?
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INDEX
ILLUSTRATIONS
FIGURES
1.
Prehistoric wine tasting
2.
“Sorcerer,” Les Trois Frères grotto, French Pyrenees, ca. 13,000 years ago
3.
Early Neolithic “musician/shaman” burial, Jiahu (Henan Province, China), ca. 6200–5600 B.C.
4.
Juzhong Zhang, excavator of Jiahu, playing early Neolithic flute of “musician/shaman”
5.
Red-crowned cranes in mating dance, Manchuria
6.
Chateau Jiahu, Dogfish Head Craft Brewery
7.
Shang Dynasty “teapot” (he), tomb of Liu Jiazhuang, Anyang, ca. 1250—1000 B.C.
8.
The author in his laboratory with 3,000-year-old millet wine from tomb at Anyang
9.
Animals on pillar, Göbekli Tepe, Turkey, ca. 9000 B.C.
10.
Dancing humans and tortoise on bowl or goblet, Nevali Çori, Turkey, ca. 8000 B.C.
11.
Neolithic “mother goddess” flanked by leopards, Çatal Höyük, Turkey, ca. 6500–5500 B.C.
12.
Neolithic “ancestors,” ‘Ain Ghazal, Jordan, mid-seventh millennium B.C.
13.
Drinking Mesopotamian barley beer: clay seal, Tepe Gawra, Iraq, ca. 3850 B.C.; and lapis lazuli cylinder seal, Queen Puabi’s tomb, Royal Cemetery at Ur, ca. 2600–2500 B.C.
14.
Hallucinogenic smoking and drinking appurtenances, Pazyryk, Russia, ca. 400 B.C.
15.
Birch-bark bucket in grave of “dancer,” Egtved, Denmark, ca. 1500–1300 B.C.
16.
Grave of Celtic prince, Hochdorf, Germany, ca. 525 B.C.
17.
Imported wine in Early Dynastic Egypt: resinated wine jars and “tiger-striped” jar in Scorpion I’s tomb, Abydos, ca. 3150 B.C.
18.
Canaanite ship arriving at port of Thebes: painting on tomb wall of Kenamun, fourteenth century B.C.
19.
Mesoamerican cacao pod, Theobroma cacao
20.
Late Classic Mayan vase painting of ruler imbibing cacao beverage
21.
Vessels for serving and consuming elite cacao beverages of the Americas
22.
Honey hunter smoking out bees in rock painting, Matopo Hills, Zimbabwe, possibly as early as ca. 8000 B.C.
23.
Beer-making facilities: Predynastic Period in Egypt and modern Burkina Faso
24.
Drinking beer through long straws, an ancient tradition: funerary stela, el-Amarna, ca. 1350 B.C.; Tiriki men, modern western Kenya
MAPS
1.
Eurasia
2.
Europe and the Mediterranean
3.
The Americas
4.
Africa
COLOR PLATES FOLLOW PAGE 128
PREFACE
AT THE END OF MY BOOK ANCIENT WINE, I posed a question: Why have cultures around the world had a millennia-long love affair with wine? My short answer then was that alcohol has been the universal drug, and that wine provides the highest concentration of this simple organic compound (ethanol) available in nature. Humans throughout history have been astounded by alcohol’s effects, whether it is imbibed as a beverage or applied to the skin. The health benefits are obvious—alcohol relieves pain, stops infection, and seems to cure diseases. Its psychological and social benefits are equally apparent—alcohol eases the difficulties of everyday life, lubricates social exchanges, and contributes to a joy in being alive.
Perhaps most profoundly, alcohol’s mind-altering effects tap into mystical, unseen realms of the human brain. Wherever we look in the ancient or modern world, we see that the principal way to communicate with the gods or the ancestors involves an alcoholic beverage, whether it is the wine of the Eucharist, the beer presented to the Sumerian goddess Ninkasi, the mead of the Vikings, or the elixir of an Amazonian or African tribe.
Briefly put, alcoholic beverages are unique among all the drugs that humans and our early hominid ancestors have exploited on this planet for more than four million years. Their preeminence and universal allure—what might be called their biological, social, and religious imperatives—make them significant in understanding the development of our species and its cultures.
To appreciate this strong coupling between alcoholic beverages and human bioculture, I propose a journey of exploration that extends farther back than the beginnings of grape wine in the Middle East. We will start out at the center of our galaxy
, move on to the beginnings of life on this planet, and then follow humankind’s preoccupation with and ingenious concoction of alcoholic beverages from continent to continent, as our species spread out from Africa across the Earth. We will examine the most recent archaeological discoveries, chemical analyses of residues on ancient pottery, and advances in the analysis of DNA. These new findings can be interpreted by drawing on ancient art and writings, the ethnography of more recent traditional beverage making, and experimental archaeology, in which we attempt to re-create the ancient beverages. The result is a rewriting of the prehistory and history of ancient alcoholic beverages, including wine, beer, and some strange mixtures I call “extreme beverages” that combine many different ingredients. Because this book picks up where Ancient Wine left off, the interested reader should consult it for more details of archaeological excavations and finds related to wine.
Some readers might already be thinking that my approach to alcoholic beverages does not take account of their darker side. The initial stimulant effect of an alcoholic beverage, as exhibited by euphoria or easy sociability, can of course turn into anger or self-hatred with excessive drinking. The depressant properties of the drug then kick in, as a person loses balance, slurs speech, and may even begin to hallucinate; the world spins out of control, and the expressions on the faces of one’s drinking companions take on a strange remoteness. The drinker may finally succumb to unconsciousness, with only disjointed fragments of the episode remembered the next day amid a ferocious hangover.
The naysayers and prohibitionists tell us that alcoholic beverages have been an unmitigated blight on humanity. They have caused untold property damage, disrupted families, led to every kind of vice and violence, and destroyed individuals’ lives. I agree that alcohol consumed in excess can be extremely detrimental to the individual and community. But any substance (especially food), activity (such as running, dancing, music making, or sex), or powerful idea (such as religious conviction) can activate appetitive and pleasure centers in our brains (see chapter 9) and lead to compulsive, addictive behavior. Because drugs such as alcohol impinge directly on the brain, they are particularly potent and need to be used with caution.
Despite its risks, few substances have earned the praise that alcohol has. The psychologist William James perhaps expressed it best in his landmark book, The Varieties of Religious Experience:
The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour. Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no; drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes. It is in fact the great exciter of the Yes function in man. It brings its votary from the chill periphery of things to the radiant core. It makes him for the moment one with truth. Not through mere perversity do men run after it . . . it is part of the deeper mystery and tragedy of life that whiffs and gleams of something we immediately recognise as excellent. (377–78)
Accolades from famous artists, musicians, writers, and scholars through the ages echo James’s sentiments. Louis Pasteur, who first observed wine yeast and tartaric acid crystals under the microscope, rhapsodized that “the flavor of wine is like delicate poetry,” picking up on the sentiments of the Roman poet Horace (Epode 11), who wrote that wine “brings to light the hidden secrets of the soul.”
So, is wine a mocker or does it gladden the heart of man? Have so many exceptional people simply been deluded about how alcohol fueled their creativity? Did Dylan Thomas, Jackson Pollock, Janis Joplin, and Jack Kerouac drink themselves into their graves in vain?
To be sure, much remains to be discovered on every front, from understanding the effects of alcohol on the human brain to filling out the history of ancient alcoholic beverages around the world. I have only touched on some of the high points in this millennia-long quest, as occasioned by the accidents of discovery and sampling. We still know little about the early use of alcohol in vast areas of Central Asia, India, Southeast Asia, the Pacific islands, Amazonia, Australia, and even some areas of Europe and North America, and we can expect surprises. For example, it has often been claimed that, among all animals, only humans overindulge in alcoholic beverages. Recently, however, it has been shown that Malaysian tree shrews, among the earliest primates on the planet, binge each night on fermented palm nectar.
The title of this book might be viewed as something of a misnomer. After all, our earliest evidence for the use of cork to seal a container of an alcoholic beverage—grape wine in this instance—is early fifth-century B.C. Athens, where a neatly rounded and beveled piece, looking much like the corks we are accustomed to, was wedged into the mouth of a wine jug and made flush with the top of the rim. A hole through the center of the cork might appear to have defeated the purpose, but perhaps it had already been removed, with some forerunner of the corkscrew, and then reinserted before the jar came to rest in the ancient well of the Agora. The excavator believed that a string had been tied through the hole so that the jar could be lowered into the well and the wine cooled.
About the same time that the Athenian wine was being drunk, an Etruscan ship went down off the coast of the French Riviera, near the island of Grand Ribaud. Its hull was filled with hundreds of wine amphoras, stacked at least five layers deep. When found recently, many of these vessels, cushioned by grapevines, were still stoppered with their original cork closures. The corks were inserted into the narrow mouths of the jars as proficiently as any modern corking machine could do it.
But the substance first known to have been stored in a vessel stoppered with cork is honey, the principal concentrated source of sugar in nature. A bronze amphora, dated ca. 540–30 B.C., was filled with liquid honey (still sticky and redolent of its characteristic aromas when it was found), closed up with cork, and deposited in a completely walled-up subterranean chamber in the ancient Italian city of Paestum, in Campania. It was intended not for making mead but as an offering to the chief goddess of the city and of the Greek pantheon, Hera, with one of the valued healing substances of antiquity. A couch at the center of the chamber might have represented the sacred marriage of the goddess, who was associated with the underworld, to her consort and brother, Zeus. As we will see later, the sacred marriage (hieros gamos) ceremony was a long-standing tradition in the Near East and was often preceded by the sharing of an alcoholic beverage.
It seems likely that earlier examples of vessels sealed with cork existed, especially in the parts of the western Mediterranean where the cork oak thrives. Wherever the practice originated, however, the goal was generally to preserve a precious liquid for future quaffing. Before the cork took on this role, our human ancestors had to make do with wood, stone, vegetal matter, or leather. With the advent of pottery around 10,000 B.C. in east Asia, raw clay began to be molded into stoppers. If a vessel was stored on its side, as was happening as early as 3500 B.C. in the Zagros Mountains of Iran, the clay absorbed liquid from the contents and expanded to keep out oxygen, just like cork, and prevented the wine from turning to vinegar. As Pliny the Elder so eloquently observed of methods to prevent wine disease in his Natural History of the first century A.D., “There is no department of man’s life on which more labor is spent.”
Uncorking the bottle represents the grand finale to the preservation and aging process—whether that entails pulling away a heavy slate stone covering a hollow tree trunk full of prehistoric fermented grape juice or honey mead, chopping off the clay stopper of an ancient Egyptian wine jar with a carefully placed blow so as to not contaminate the elixir, or opening a vintage port by searing off the neck of the glass bottle with hot tongs. As the champagne cork pops or the hollow tree trunk bubbles over, we anticipate celebratory, exuberant sensations.
ONE
HOMO IMBIBENS
I Drink, Therefore I Am
ASTRONOMERS PROBING OUR GALAXY WITH powerful radio waves have discovered that alcohol does not exist only on the Earth. Massive clouds of methanol, ethanol, and
vinyl ethanol—measuring billions of kilometers across—have been located in interstellar space and surrounding new star systems. One cloud, denoted Sagittarius B2N, is located near the center of the Milky Way, some 26,000 light-years or 150 quadrillion miles away from the Earth. While the distant location ensures that humans will not be exploiting extraterrestrial ethanol any time soon, the magnitude of this phenomenon has excited speculation about how the complex carbon molecules of life on Earth were first formed.
Scientists hypothesize that the vinyl ethanol molecules in particular, with their more chemically reactive double bonds, might have been held in place on interstellar dust particles. As in making a vinyl plastic, one vinyl ethanol molecule would couple to another, gradually building up ever more complex organic compounds that are the stuff of life. Dust particles, with their loads of these new carbon polymers, might have been transported through the universe in the icy heads of comets. At high velocities, the ice would melt, releasing the dust to seed a planet like Earth with a kind of organic soup, out of which primitive life forms emerged. It is a gigantic leap from the formation of ethanol to the evolution of the intricate biochemical machinery of the simplest bacteria, not to mention the human organism. But as we peer into the night sky, we might ask why there is an alcoholic haze at the center of our galaxy, and what role alcohol played in jump-starting and sustaining life on our planet.
CREATING A FERMENT
Uncorking the Past Page 1
