A high-production brewery believed to be more than 5,000 years old has been uncovered by a team of archeologists at a funerary site in southern Egypt, the Ministry of Antiquities and Tourism said on Saturday.
The site containing several “units” consisting of about 40 earthenware pots arranged in two rows was uncovered at North Abydos, Sohag, by a joint Egyptian-American team, the ministry said in a statement on its Facebook page.
The brewery likely dates back to the era of King Narmer, it quoted Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities secretary-general Mostafa Waziry as saying, adding that it believed the find to “be the oldest high-production brewery in the world.”
Photo: AFP / Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities
Narmer, who ruled more than 5,000 years ago, founded the First Dynasty and unified Upper and Lower Egypt.
British archeologists first discovered the existence of the brewery at the beginning of the 20th century, but its location was never precisely determined, the statement said.
The team “was able to re-locate and uncover its contents”, it said.
Photo: AFP Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities
The brewery consisted of eight large areas that were used as “units for beer production,” Waziry said.
Each sector contained about 40 earthenware pots arranged in two rows.
A mixture of water and grains used for beer production was heated in the vats, with each basin “held in place by levers made of clay placed vertically in the form of rings.”
Archeologist Matthew Adams of New York University, who heads the joint mission with Deborah Vischak of Princeton University, said studies have shown that beer was produced at a large scale, with about 22,400 liters made at a time.
The brewery “may have been built in this place specifically to supply the royal rituals that were taking place inside the funeral facilities of the kings of Egypt,” the statement quoted him as saying.
“Evidence for the use of beer in sacrificial rites was found during excavations in these facilities,” the statement said.
Evidence of beer-making in ancient Egypt is not new, and past discoveries have shed light on such production. Fragments of pottery used by Egyptians to make beer and dating back 5,000 years were discovered on a building site in Tel Aviv, the Israeli Antiquities Authority announced in 2015.
Abydos, where the latest discovery was unearthed, has yielded many treasures over the years and is famed for its temples, such as that of Seti I.
In 2000, a team of US archeologists brought to light in Abydos the earliest known example of an ancient Egyptian solar barge, dating back to the first Pharaonic dynasty about 5,000 years ago.
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