Homer The Ilias tells one of the greatest legendary epics of history. It also describes a round of drinks shared by the gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus.
“Hephaestus spoke, then got up, passed a double cup to his dear mother … while he spoke, the white-armed goddess Hera smiled,” Homer writes. “She reached for her son’s cup. He poured the drink, went from right to left, for all other gods, who took sweet nectar from the mixing bowl.”
It is not long before the gods soon start to laugh ‘unstoppable’, while ‘all day dined that day, to sunset’. In the end: “Nobody was not satisfied.”
According to the recent analysis of old relics recovered from the real ruins of Troy, wine was not limited to Greek divinity and rich people. It was probably also enjoyed by everyday residents. The new findings published in the April edition of the American Journal of Archaeology Also support a long -term theory that Homer has based The Ilias About actual historical events.
The ruins of Troy were rediscovered more than 150 years ago by a German businessman and amateur archaeologist named Heinrich Schliemann. Among the artifacts that Schliemann had been restored to present-day Hisarlik, Turkey, a number of slender, two-handed drinking ships were made of clay. Experts have since excavated more than 100 of these dePas cups (DePas Amphikypellon) from Trojan Dig-Sites, which date from 2500-2000 BC. More have also been found in the Aegean Sea, Klein -Asia and Mesopotamia. Each de pass measures approximately 4.7-15.75 inches long and can retain between 0.25-1 liter liquid.
Nowadays, the University of Tübingen contains one de pass Goblet and two shipfrags from the original excavations of Schliemann in the classic archeology collection of Germany. At the time, Schliemann believed that dePas -cups were used for common parties similar to those described in The Ilias. But without modern chemical analysis methods, his hypothesis could not be tested.
That has recently changed thanks to a collaboration team from the universities of Tübingen, Bonn and Jena. After milling a sample of two grams from each of the two vessel fragments, researchers heated them to 716 degrees Fahrenheit and analyzed the mixture with grass chromatography and mass spectrometry equipment. Two types of molecules ended in the results: Subinic and Pyruvic acid.
“They only occur when grape juice yeast. So now we can say with confidence that wine was actually drunk from the dePas cups and not just grape juice,” study co-author Maxime Rageot at the University of Bonn said in a corresponding statement.
DePas -however, were not everyday items. Wine was the most expensive drink available during the Bronze Age and most recovered cups were found in palaces and temples. Experts previously believed that this implied that wine consumption was mainly exiled to social elites. But in their same study, researchers also carried out a similar analysis of ordinary Trojan cups that were found outside the central complex of the city. Those results also proved that wine was more accessible than researchers ever thought.
“These ships also contain wine,” Confirmed study co-author Stephan Blum from the University of Tübingen. “It is therefore clear that wine was also a daily drink for ordinary people.”
How often the inhabitants of Troy’s middle and lower class drank remains unclear. But with the last findings, historians and archaeologists now know that fermented grapes were not only reserved for Hera and Hector.