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An Egyptian Grand Cru: Wine Production at Plinthine

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An Egyptian Grand Cru: Wine Production at Plinthine Thonis/ Herakleion Location of the site of Plinthine, on the taenia An Egyptian grand ridge, in the Mareotis region. Mediterranean sea Alexandria cru: wine production Canopic Mareotis Lake Branch taenia ridge Plinthine/ at Plinthine Kom el-Nogous Marea Peninsula 10/08/2019 Saïs Google Maps Taposiris Magna Kom Bahig Kom Firin Naukratis Recent archaeological discoveries as well as archaeobotanical and environmental studies in Plinthine shed new light on wine production at this small village on the taenia ridge between the Mediterranean Sea and Lake Mareotis, writes Bérangère Redon. Viticulture was practised here from the New Kingdom to the Ptolemaic period. For Map: BingMap image adapted by B. Redon the first time, we gain information on the grape varieties and wine- making process in an area whose wines were once famous but are still little known within archaeology. Below: plan of Kom el-Nugus / Plinthine and its vicinity, with the find spots of wine-production remains. Wine production in ancient Egypt Kingdom onward, especially on the fringes of Wine in ancient Egypt? The country is not the Nile delta where the first vines might have Plinthine (Kom el-Nugus - ) N renowned for its wines in Pharaonic times, and been imported from the Near East. While 2012-2018 Seasons General Plan - scale 1/3000e in the classical literature the Egyptians are mentioned in written sources, represented on Architectural survey: M. Vanpeene - Th. Fournet CAD: M. Vanpeene Topographican survey: Th. Arnoux - O. Onézime - M. Vanpeene considered as beer drinkers. The famous paintings adorning the tombs of the Theban Kom el-Nugus (from Late New Kingdom to Roman period) Saite grape grinder historian of the 5th century BC, Herodotus, valley, and evoked by the thousands of labels Imagery ©2019 Landsat / Copernicus, Data(sect. SIO, 6) NOAA, U.S. Navy, NGA, GEBCO, Map data ©2019 Mapa GISrael, ORION- 50 km ME Above: map of northern even states that the inhabitants of the country found with the jars that contained the precious Egypt, showing the did not grow vines on their soil (II, 77). Wine- liquid, the production of wine in pharaonic Mareotis region. making and -consumption in Egypt is usually Egypt has never been studied in the field. This associated with the arrival of wine-drinking is because until recently, no archaeological populations in Egypt after the conquest of evidence of a pharaonic winery has been found, Alexander the Great in 331 BC, for which other than a very poorly preserved example View from Kom el- there are indeed numerous papyrological and at Tell el-Dab’a Ptolemaic town Nogous to the west, with archaeological data (dozens of wineries have One of the most famous Egyptian vintages New Kingdom pottery fig trees now replacing (and ovens?) the ancient vineyards. been excavated, mainly of the Roman and was grown on the territory called ‘the Western The Osiris temple of Byzantine periods). River’, mentioned on a few dozens of jar labels Taposiris is visible in the However, viticulture is evidenced in Egypt found in Tell el-Amarna (representing more than Ptolemaic grape grinder background. from the Predynastic period and the Old 70 percent of the jar labels ever found at the Ptolemaic Necropolis Photo: MFTMP / B. Redon 0 50 100 200 400 m Wine-production evidence Modern buildings New Kingdom Remains Roads Ancient buildings (certain, uncertain) Map: MFTMP / M. Vanpeene, Th. Fournet site). The ‘Western River’ probably merged with wine age (XVII, 1, 14). Among the vintages or included the Mareotis region, on the shores produced in the region, the wine of the taenia, of Lake Mareotis (nowadays Maryut), located at the sandstone ridge separating the Mediterranean the gates of Alexandria and well known for its Sea from Lake Mareotis, was judged of better wine production in Roman and Byzantine times. quality than the wine from the southern Mareotis The quality of the Mareotis wine is praised by area by Athenaeus, an Egyptian author of the Latin poets, such as Virgil and Horace. According 2nd century AD. According to him, ‘the taeniotic to them, it was white, sweet, and aromatic. wine, in addition to being sweet, [was] somewhat Strabo even says that the ancients let the Mareotis spicy and slightly astringent’ (I, 33). 28 EGYPTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY ISSUE NO 55 AUTUMN 2019 29 https://www.google.com/maps/@30.7038872,30.9598139,291827m/data=!3m1!1e3 1/1 AN EGYPTIAN GRAND CRU: WINE PRODUCTION AT PLINTHINE the stamped wine jar may suggest that a royal Other tomb paintings show that the men were vineyard was cultivated at Plinthine during the singing while pressing the grapes, and hold Photogrammetric Grape pips, skin, pedicel Eighteenth Dynasty. poles or strings attached to the roof or to the image of the Saite grape and stalk fragments grinder at Plinthine. found in the Plinthine After a period not well-documented on the hips or shoulders of their neighbours in order samples dated to the site so far, wine production clearly intensifies not to slip on the grapes. Treading was indeed Saite period. again during the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, as not all that easy, as the quick onset of fermentation while grapes were being pressed Image: MFTMP / M. Vanpeene meant that workers were probably a little drunk while pressing. The third period of wine production evidenced at Plinthine dates to the Ptolemaic period. A few decades after Alexander the Great’s conquest of Egypt, a community of new inhabitants of Hellenic origin settled on Photo: MFTMP / G. Polin (Ifao) the site, as shown by their funerary customs Left: detail of the treading platform, built from limestone slabs and covered with mortar. Right: the entrance to the Saite grape grinder of Plinthine. Below: a reconstruction of the Saite grape grinder. Plinthine – a wine-producing village With the support of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology (Ifao), and the Arpamed fund, the French mission of Taposiris Magna and Plinthine (MFTMP) recently launched a project dedicated to the study of the wine production of a taeniotic site – Plinthine – over the longue durée from the pharaonic period to the end Photo: MFTMP / G. Polin (Ifao) Photo: MFTMP / G. Polin (Ifao) of Ptolemaic era. Coupling soil analyses, the study of grape varieties and excavations, the and the necropolis, scattered pottery dated shown by the discovery of an exceptionally analysis focus on the whole production chain, to the New Kingdom is visible on the surface. well-preserved grape grinder, whose from the grape seed to the jar. construction can be securely dated to the Plinthine is remarkably situated on the shores Three phases of viticulture at Plinthine second half of the 7th century BC. It is located of the Mediterranean Sea and Lake Maryut, 2 Interestingly, Hellanikos, a Greek author of in a vaulted room that belongs to a complex km east of Taposiris Magna, a well-known city the 5th century BC (quoted by Athenaeus I, building still only partly excavated, and is built occupied from the Ptolemaic period to early 60), reports that viticulture was invented at in a very fine local limestone, covered with medieval times, in the extreme north-west of Plinthine. This is likely a legend, but our recent mortar. The grinder consisted of a raised what Herodotus considered as the territory finds show that wine production began well treading platform (1.89 x 2.14 m) where the of Egypt. The site consists of a large, horse- before the mention of Hellanikos, probably grapes were pressed underfoot by several shoe-shaped kom (Kom el-Nugus), during the New Kingdom, and that this tradition people, and a monolithic vat of 9 hl into which 11 m high, atop the ridge. Our excavations lasted for more than a millennium, with the juice flowed from the platform through a have shown traces of occupation from the Late unexpected intensity. drain. A unique example in pharaonic Egypt, New Kingdom to the Late Ptolemaic or Early First evidence was discovered in 2015, during its closest parallels can be found in the paintings Roman period. It overlooks a village, built on a survey in the ‘New Kingdom area’, where that adorned the tomb walls of the Valley of the southern slope of the ridge, looking toward several ovens and ceramics, including a wine Nobles in Thebes, in particular in the tomb of Lake Mareotis, whose last phase of occupation jar stamped with the name of the eldest Nakht (TT 52). It is also very similar to the – the only one we have studied so far – dates daughter of Akhenaten, Merytaten, were winery depicted in the Petosiris tomb, dated back to the Hellenistic period. Dated to the found. Besides other artefacts (among them to the early Hellenistic period, except for the same period, the necropolis of Plinthine is a limestone stela of Sety II) that attest a royal lion-head drain, which becomes common only situated 500 m to the west. Between the kom presence on the site during the next dynasty, during the Graeco-Roman period in Egypt. Image: MFTMP / M. Vanpeene 30 EGYPTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY ISSUE NO 55 AUTUMN 2019 31 AN EGYPTIAN GRAND CRU: WINE PRODUCTION AT PLINTHINE and offerings, and some rare inscriptions. They pressed at Plinthine during the Twenty-sixth Sections and plan of the Saite grape grinder. clearly perpetuated the wine tradition of Dynasty and in the Ptolemaic period, with, Plinthine, as shown by the discovery of the respectively, 28 and 15 different grape varieties only wine-producing villa in Mareotis that can identified so far, ranging from species close to securely be dated to the Ptolemaic period. It the wild vine to varieties well-known elsewhere is located at the fringes of the necropolis and in the Middle East or Greece.
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