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Beer › Ancient History
Definition and Origins
Beer is one of the oldest intoxicating beverages consumed by human beings. Even a cursory survey of history makes clear that, after human beings have taken care of the essential needs of food, shelter, and rudimentary laws for the community, their next immediate concern is developing intoxicants. Evidence of early beer brewing has been confirmed by finds at the Sumerian settlement of Godin Tepe in modern-day Iran going back to between 3500-3100 BCE but intoxicants had already become an integral aspect of daily human life long before. Scholar Jean Bottero writes:
In ancient Mesopotamia, among the oldest `civilized people' in the world, alchoholic beverages were part of the festivities as soon as a simple repast bordered on a feast. Although beer, brewed chiefly from a barley base, remained the `national drink', wine was not uncommon. (84)
Although wine was consumed in Mesopotamia, it never reached the level of popularity that beer maintained for thousands of years. Sumerians loved beer so much they ascribed the creation of it to the gods and beer plays a prominent role in many of the Sumerian myths, among them, Inanna and the God of Wisdom and The Epic of Gilgamesh. The Sumerian Hymn to Ninkasi, written down in 1800 BCE but understood to be much older, is both a praise song to the Sumerian goddess of beer and a recipe for brewing.
MESOPOTAMIAN BEER WAS A THICK, PORRIDGE-LIKE DRINK CONSUMED THROUGH A STRAW & WAS MADE FROM BIPPAR (BARLEY BREAD).
Brewers were female, most likely priestesses of Ninkasi, and early on beer was brewed by women in the home as a supplement to meals. The beer was a thick, porridge-like drink consumed through a straw and was made from bippar (barley bread) which was baked twice and allowed to ferment in a vat. By the year 2050 BCE beer brewing had become commercialized as evidenced by the famous Alulu beer receipt from the city of Ur dated to that time.
THE ORIGIN & DEVELOPMENT OF BEER
It is thought that the craft of brewing beer began in domestic kitchens when grains used for baking bread were left out unattended and began to ferment. Scholars Jeremy Black and Anthony Green, to name only one authority on the subject, write, “alcoholic beverages probably resulted from an accidental discovery during the early hunter-gatherer stage of human prehistory” (Gods,28). While this theory has long been accepted, scholar Stephen Bertman advances another and discusses the long-standing popularity of the drink:
Though bread was basic to the Mesopotamian diet, botanist Jonathan D. Sauer has suggested the making of it may not have been the original incentive for raising barley. Instead, he has argued, the real incentive was beer, first discovered when kernels of barley were found sprouting and fermenting in storage. Whether or not Sauer is right, beer soon became the ancient Mesopotamian's favorite drink. As a Sumerian proverb has it: "He who does not know beer, does not know good." The Babylonians had some 70 varieties, and beer was enjoyed by both gods and humans who, as art shows, drank it from long straws to avoid the barley hulls that tended to float to the surface. (292)
Lapis Lazuli Cylinder Seal of Queen Puabi
The scholar Max Nelson also rejects the claim that brewing beer was discovered accidentally, writing :
Fruits often naturally ferment through the actions of wild yeast and the resultant alcoholic mixtures are often sought out and enjoyed by animals. Pre-agricultural humans in various areas from the Neolithic period on surely similarly sought out such fermenting fruits and probably even collected wild fruits in the hopes that they would have an interesting physical effect (that is, be intoxicating) if left in the open air. (9)
Beer became popular, not only because of the taste and its effects, but because it was healthier to drink than the water of the region. Scholar Paul Kriwaczek details how the waste disposal systems of the cities of Mesopotamia were intricately designed to deposit human and animal waste outside the city walls, and yet that was precisely where the water supply was usually located. Kriwaczek notes how this was "a magnificent engineering achievement but a potential disaster for public health" (83).The best waters were far from the cities but nearby streams could be tapped for water to make beer which was safer to drink because of the fermenting process which involved boiling the water. Kriwaczek continues:
If the watercourses were unsafe, boreholes and wells were no more providers of drinking water, as the saline water-table was too close to the surface. Beer therefore, sterilized by its weak alcohol content, was the safest drink, just as in the western world, as late as Victorian times, it was served at every meal, even in hospitals and orphanages. In ancient Sumer, beer also constituted a proportion of the wages paid to those who had to serve others for their living. (83)
Beer became the drink of choice throughout the region and especially so once it developed into a commercial enterprise. At this point, it seems, the business was taken over by men who recognized how lucrative it could be and women - the traditional brewers - continued on under their supervision. The brew was all hand-crafted, of course, but as it gained in popularity was made in greater quantities and this led to the development of larger-scale breweries. Scholar Gwendolyn Leick comments:
Beer was produced mainly from barley. From the pounded grain, cakes were molded and baked for a short time.These were pounded again, mixed with water, and brought to fermentation. Then the pulp was filtered and the beer stored in large jars. Mesopotamian beer could be kept only for a short time and had to be consumed fresh.The cuneiform texts mention different kinds of beer, such as "strong beer", "fine beer", and "dark beer". Other sorts were produced from emmer or sesame, as well as dates in the Neo-Babylonian Period and later. (33)
Mesopotamian Beer Rations Tablet
The gods were thought to have given beer to humanity and so beer was offered back to them in sacrifice at the temples throughout Mesopotamia. As noted, it was also used to pay wages and was consumed readily at religious festivals, celebrations, and funeral ceremonies. Beer was associated with good times as a drink which made one's heart feel light and allowed one to forget one's problems.
In The Epic of Gilgamesh, for example, the hero, distraught over the death of his friend, sets out on a quest for immortality and the meaning of life. In his travels, he meets the barmaid Siduri who suggests he leave off such lofty aspirations and simply enjoy life while he lives; in short, she tells him to relax and have a beer. Beer was widely enjoyed for a variety of reasons and under virtually every sort of circumstance. Black and Green write:
That commercialized social drinking, not for religious or medicinal purposes, was common by at least the early second millennium BC is attested by the laws of Hammurabi of Babylon regulating public houses. (Gods, 28)
Although the Sumerians had first developed the craft of brewing, the Babylonians took the process further and regulated how it was brewed, served, and even who could sell it. A priestess who had been consecrated to a deity, for example, was allowed to drink as much beer as she pleased privately but was prohibited from opening a tavern, serving beer, or entering a tavern to drink publicly like a common woman.
HAMMURABI'S CODE THREATENS DEATH BY DROWNING FOR ANY WOMAN TENDING BAR WHO POURS A `SHORT MEASURE' OF BEER FOR A CUSTOMER.
As with the brewing process itself, the first bartenders were women as the Code of Hammurabi makes clear. Among other regulations, Hammurabi's code threatens death by drowning for any woman tending bar who pours a `short measure' of beer for a customer; meaning anyone who does not fill the customer's vessel in accordance with the price paid.
BEER TRAVELS THE WORLD
Through trade, beer travelled to Egypt where the people embraced the brew eagerly. Egyptians loved their beer as much as the Mesopotamians did and breweries grew up all around Egypt. As in Mesopotamia, women were the first brewers and beer was closely associated with the goddess Hathor at Dendera at an early stage. Scholar Richard H. Wilkinson writes:
Hathor was associated with alcoholic beverages which seem to have been used extensively in her festivals, and the image of the goddess is often found on vessels made to contain wine and beer. Hathor was thus known as the mistress of drunkenness, of song, and of myrrh, and it is certainly likely that these qualities increased the goddess's popularity from Old Kingdom times and ensured her persistence throughout the rest of Egypt's history. (143)
Although Hathor encouraged people to freely express their joy in life through drink, it should be noted that drinking to excess was only appropriate under certain conditions. Neither Hathor nor any of the other Egyptian deities smiled upon drunk workers or those who abused alcohol to another's detriment. The universal principle of ma'at (harmony and balance) allowed for excessive drinking but always in balance with the rest of one's daily responsibilities, one's family, and the larger community.
Hathor was not the primary goddess of beer, however; the Egyptian goddess of beer was Tenenit (from one of the Egyptian words for beer, tenemu ) and it was thought the art of brewing was first taught to her by the great god Osiris himself. Like Ninkasi in Sumer, Tenenit brewed her beer from the finest ingredients and oversaw every aspect of its creation.
Beer Brewing in Ancient Egypt
The final result of her efforts was a brew which was enjoyed throughout the land in a number of different varieties. Workers at the Giza plateau received beer rations three times a day and prescriptions for various ailments included the use of beer (over 100 recipes for medicines included the drink). As in Mesopotamia, beer was thought to be healthier than drinking water and was consumed by Egyptians of all ages, the youngest to the oldest.
From Egypt, beer traveled to Greece (as evidenced by the similarity of another of the Egyptian's word for beer, zytum and the ancient Greek for the beverage, zythos ). The Greeks, however, as the Romans after them, favored strong wine over beer and considered the grainy brew an inferior drink of barbarians. The Roman Emperor Julian even composed a poem extolling the virtues of wine as a nectar while noting that beer smelled like a goat. That the Romans did brew beer, however, is evidenced by finds at the Roman outpost in Regensburg, Germany - founded in 179 CE by Marcus Aurelius as Casta Regina- as well as at Trier and other sites.
THE FALL & RISE OF BEER
As the Roman Empire spread, so naturally did Roman culture and tastes. Since the Romans favored wine over beer, beer was considered a distasteful “barbarian beverage” as compared with the cultivated and higher-class drink of wine. Even so, it seems it was primarily the Celts who were first responsible for wine's preferential status over beer as they also considered beer an unfit drink for a man. Nelson writes:
Beer was thought to be an inferior type of intoxicant since it was (at least often) affected by the corrupting power of yeast and was naturally a `cold' and hence effeminate substance while wine was thought to be unaffected by yeast and to be rather a `hot' and hence manly substance. (115-116)
The Gauls were “addicted to the wine imported by Italian merchants which they drank unmixed [with water] and in immoderate amounts to the point of falling into stupors” and also that they were so enamored of wine that they would “exchange a slave for one jar of Italian wine” (Nelson, 48-49). However poorly beer was viewed by the prevailing elite, though, their attitude did nothing to stop people from brewing the drink.
Urartian Beer Pitchers
As Nelson makes clear throughout his work, The Barbarian's Beverage: A History of Beer in Ancient Europe, the brew recognized in the modern day as `beer' developed in Germany and their brewing techniques then influenced further development throughout Europe. The Germans were brewing beer as early as 800 BCE and their early methods mirrored those of the ancient Sumerians in regard to purity of the brew but with the important addition of hops. Women were also the first brewers in Germany and beer was made from only fresh water, heated, and the best grains. The tradition continued down into the Christian era when monks took up the craft of brewing and sold beer from their monasteries.
Beer was still considered a divine gift, now given by the Christian god, and the evils which might arise from drunkenness was ascribed to the devil (Nelson, 87). The biblical injunction to refrain from drunkenness (Ephesians 5:18) was not thought to apply to the drink itself but rather to overindulgence which opened the door for darker powers to enter one's life rather than one being filled with the Holy Spirit sent from God. This view of beer is similar to that of the people of ancient Mesopotamia who blamed an individual for over-indulgence in drink, and the attendant problems which might arise, but never the drink itself.
By 770 CE, the Christian champion Charlemagne the Great was appointing brewers in France and, like the Babylonians before him, regulated the production, sale, and use of it. Beer was still understood to be healthier to drink than water because of the brewing process and continued to be associated with a divine origin; its popularity also continued undiminished. The Finnish epic, The Kalevala (written in the 17th century CE, but based on much older tales) devotes more lines to beer than to the creation of the world and praises the effects of beer in such a way that they would easily be recognizable to anyone from ancient Sumeria to a modern-day drinker.
Brewers continued to enjoy a special status in their communities until the 19th and 20th centuries CE when temperance groups gained political power in the United States and areas of Europe and were able to effect prohibition to greater or lesser degrees. Even so, the long-established popularity of intoxicants among human beings could not be suppressed by legislation and all the acts of all the governing bodies would not stop brewers and vintners from rising again. In the modern day, beer is as lucrative a commercial venture as it was in the ancient world and the drink retains its popularity on an international scale.Whether an individual is experiencing good or bad times, beer continues to enjoy the same high status it did in ancient Mesopotamia: the drink which makes one's heart feel light.
Silk in Antiquity › Antique Origins
Definition and Origins
Silk is a fabric first produced in Neolithic China from the filaments of the cocoon of the silk worm. It became a staple source of income for small farmers and, as weaving techniques improved, the reputation of Chinese silk spread so that it became highly desired across the empires of the ancient world. As China's most important export for much of its history, the material gave its name to the great trading network the Silk Road, which connected East Asia to Europe, India, and Africa. Not only used to make fine clothes, silk was used for fans, wall hangings, banners, and as a popular alternative to paper for writers and artists.
ORIGINS & CULTIVATION
Silk is produced by silk worms ( Bombyx mori ) to form the cocoon within which the larvae develop. A single specimen is capable of producing a 0.025 mm thick thread over 900 metres (3,000 ft) long. Several such filaments are then twisted together to make a thread thick enough to be used to weave material. Fabrics were created using looms, and treadle-operated versions appear in, for example, the murals in tombs of the Han dynasty (206 BCE - 220 CE). The silk could be dyed and painted using such minerals and natural materials as cinnabar, red ochre, powdered silver, powdered clam shells, and indigo and other inks extracted from vegetable matter.
THE EARLIEST KNOWN EXAMPLES OF WOVEN SILK DATE TO C. 2700 BCE & COME FROM THE SITE OF QIANSHANYANG IN CHINA.
Sericulture - that is the cultivation of mulberry leaves, the tending of silkworms, the gathering of threads from their cocoons and the weaving of silk - first appears in the archaeological record of ancient China c. 3600 BCE. Excavations at Hemudu in Zhejiang province have revealed Neolithic tools for weaving and silk gauze. The earliest known examples of woven silk date to c. 2700 BCE and come from the site of Qianshanyang, also in Zhejiang. Recent archaeological evidence suggests that the Indus Valley civilization in the north of the Indian subcontinent was also making silk contemporary with the Neolithic Chinese.They used the Antheraea moth to produce silk threads for weaving.
However, silk production on a large scale and involving more sophisticated weaving techniques would only appear from the Chinese Shang and Zhou dynasties in the 2nd millennium BCE. Silk then became one of the most important manufactured and traded goods in ancient China, and finds of Shang dynasty (c. 1600 - 1046 BCE) silk in an Egyptian tomb are testimony to its esteemed value and use in early international trade.
EVOLUTION
During the Han dynasty, the quality of silk improved even further, becoming finer, stronger, and often with multicoloured embroidered patterns and designs of human and animal figures. Chinese characters are also woven into the fabric of many surviving examples. The weave of some Han period pieces, with 220 warp threads per centimetre, is extremely fine. The cultivation of the silk worms themselves also became more sophisticated from the 1st century CE with techniques used to speed up or slow their growth by adjusting the temperature of their environment. Different breeds were used, and these were crossed to create silk worms capable of producing threads with different qualities useful to the weavers.
Women Checking Silk, Song China.
Weavers were usually women, and it was also their responsibility to make sure the silk worms were well fed on their favourite diet of chopped mulberry leaves and that they were sufficiently warm enough to spin thread for their cocoons. The industry became such a vital source of income for families that land dedicated to the cultivation of mulberry bushes was even made exempt from reforms which otherwise took away agricultural land from peasant ownership and mulberry plots became the only land that it was possible for farmers to claim hereditary ownership of. Mencius, the Confucian philosopher, advocated the smallest of land holdings always set aside a plot to plant mulberry. As demand grew, then the state and those with enough capital to do so set up large workshops where both men and women worked. Great aristocratic houses had their own private silk production team with several hundred workers employed in producing silk for the estate's needs and for resale. Silk production even became the subject of poems and songs such as this example from the Master Xun philosophical text of the Warring States period :
How naked its external form,Yet it continually transforms like a spirit.Its achievement covers the world,For it has created ornament for a myriad generations.Ritual ceremonies and musical performances are completed through it;Noble and humble are distinguished with it;Young and old rely on it;For with it alone can one survive.(in Lewis, 114-115)
Eventually, the Chinese could no longer keep the lucrative secret of silk production to themselves and it began to be manufactured in Korea and Japan where it would become a state-controlled industry. Other states and cultures then acquired the skills of sericulture such as India around 300 CE, and from there it spread to Byzantium, Arabia, the Levant, and Italy.
TRADE: THE SILK ROAD
The fame of Chinese manufactured silk spread across the famous trade route which took its name - the Silk Road - such was the commodity's importance to the Chinese economy. The Silk Road or Sichou Zhi Lu was actually an entire network of overland camel caravan routes connecting China to the Middle East and hence is now often referred to as the Silk Routes by historians. Silk - in the form of the thread, woven cloth, and finished products - was thus exported via middlemen (no single trader ever travelled the length of the routes) not only to neighbouring states such as the Korean kingdoms and Japan but also to the great empires of India, Persia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. In the case of the latter, it is said that the eventual financial collapse of the state was in part due to the constant drain of silver to the east where it went to purchase the silk that the Romans could not live without. The Romans even called the Chinese Seres, after the word for silk in that language.
The Silk Road
In addition to land routes and passage across the Inland Sea to Japan, from the 11th century CE Chinese junks sailed and traded across the Indian Ocean and silk thus remained the number one export product of China for centuries; it would only be rivalled by porcelain and tea from the 15th century CE. By the 20th century CE, it would be Japan that would replace China as the world's largest silk producer.
USES
In China, and later elsewhere, silk was used to make clothing (especially long robes, gowns, and jackets), hand fans, furnishings, wall hangings, screens, decorative scenes for and from famous books and poems, military banners, funeral banners, Buddhist mandalas, and for the purposes of writing instead of bamboo or paper. Brightly coloured and exquisitely embroidered silk robes became a status symbol and helped distinguish officials and courtiers from the cotton- or plain-silk-wearing lower classes. In other cultures, such as Korea, there were even laws forbidding the wearing of silk by persons below a certain social rank. Embroidered silk became so varied and refined that a whole connoisseurship developed around the material, similar to that surrounding the fine porcelain of Chinese potters. Taoist priests were another group who were distinguished by their silk robes, often embroidered with ceremonial scenes.
As a valuable commodity bolts of silk were often used as a form of currency, especially in the payment of tribute such as by the Northern Song (960-1127 CE) and the Southern Song (1127-1276 CE) to the Liao and the Jin emperors, respectively. Silk was also an esteemed gift. Given to tributary states in appreciation of their loyalty, it was an impressive symbol of the Chinese emperor ’s great wealth and largesse. For example, in 25 BCE alone, the Han gave as gifts an incredible 20,000 rolls of silk cloth. Traders used it is a payment, people paid their tax with it, and even armies were sometimes paid in silk.
Silk & Textile Shoe from China
In art, silk became a popular surface on which to paint landscape scenes and portraits. Tang dynasty (618-907 CE) artists were particularly famed for their skills in dyeing, printing and painting on silk, with many examples of their work surviving in Japan where they were sent as gifts. Silk books were made which had copies of famous paintings and so became reference albums for art connoisseurs.
CULTURAL REPERCUSSIONS
The trade of silk and other commodities along the Silk Road also brought with it ideas and cultural practices in both directions;language and writing were especially important elements transmitted along the routes by traders, diplomats, monks, and travellers. Buddhism came to China from India and was then passed on to Korea and Japan. Explorers such as Marco Polo used the route, as did Christian missionaries from the west to enter China for the first time. New foodstuffs were introduced into China and then cultivated there such as walnuts, pomegranates, sesame, and coriander. Silk, symbol of China for so long, had opened the doors to new lands and new ideas, and finally connected the great empires of the ancient world.
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