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ARCHAEOLOGY ARTICLE

Clues to King Tut's White Wine
by MIKE BALDWIN

07.01.2006 -- The first chemical evidence of white wine in ancient Egypt has been extracted from jars recovered from King Tutankhamen's tomb. The jars are now on display at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

A team, lead by the University of Barcelona's Maria Rosa Guasch-Jané, have studied the dried residue from the inside surfaces of six jars taken from the boy-king's tomb, and determined that the yellow or pale brown residues found in the jars contained tartaric acid, a chemical found in grapes. One jar contained a dark residue and traces of syringic acid, found in the main pigment of red wine. Syringic acid was not found in any of the jars containing the lighter-colored residue.

Inscriptions were found on two of the jars. One white-wine jar held an inscription whaich translated as "sweet wine" and the other jar's inscription decribed the wine as a gift from a prominent Egyptian official to the king.

Until now, the oldest written accounts of white wine in Egypt date tot he third century AD. Tut ruled from 1332 BC to 1322 BC.

A white wine container was found at the east wall of Tut's burial chamber, while a red wine container was found at the west wall. Reseachers plan to investigate the arrangement of these vessels to determine if there might be some symbolic meaning for ancient Egyptians as it relates to the afterlife and rebirth of their rulers.

A LITTLE BIT ABOUT KING TUT

We know very little about Tutankhamun's life. Although his tomb was crammed with a great variety of objects, it held very few written documents. For this reason, it told us very little about the king himself. We are never told who Tutankhamun's parents were, although his father was probably Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV). His mother may have been Queen Nefertiti, or a different queen, perhaps a lady named Kiya. Tutankhamun was originally called Tutankh-aten. He came to the throne at eight years of age and married his sister/half sister Ankhesenpa-aten. The two changed their names to Tutankh-amun and Ankhesen-amun to honor the god Amun who was being reinstated as Egypt's patron god. We know that Tutankhamun ruled from Thebes, that he promoted temple building, and that he was about 18 years old when he died. We do not, however, know how he died. There have been theories that he was killed, but this has not been proven. He was followed on the throne by Ay.

Bruce Bower, "Jarring clues to Tut's white wine", Of Note, Science News, Vol. 169, No. 22, Science Service, Washington, DC, 3 June 2006. Visit Science News at http://www.sciencenews.org

"Questions about Egypt", DIG: the archaeology magazine for kids, Peterborough, NH, accessed 01 July 2006.

Information for educational purposes under the "fair use" provision of the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976.

 

    


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