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  By the time that Egypt entered its dynastic era (c. 3100 BC), beer, known as hqt, had been established as the beverage for workers, whereas wine, or irp, was the drink of the elite. Beer, in keeping with its plebeian associations, was treated principally as a kind of food. Egyptian tomb paintings and clay models depicting its manufacture feature bare-breasted peasant women up to their elbows in their brews; papyrus scrolls bearing financial accounts state that the laborers who built the pyramids of the Giza Plateau were provided with a daily ration of one and a third gallons. A modern re-creation of Egyptian beer, brewed in accordance with written and pictorial evidence, weighed in at 5 percent ABV—the strength of the average contemporary pint, implying that, by the standards of the present day, the pyramids were built by an army of drunks. However, while the Egyptians have left us plenty of practical information about their brewing, they were almost silent on the matter of intoxication. The very few descriptions as to the effect of ten or more pints of beer every day are positive, if enigmatic: “The mouth of a perfectly contented man is filled with beer.”

  We can, however, be certain that the average Egyptian became intoxicated on certain ceremonial occasions. These included the annual bash celebrating the Drunkenness of Hathor, goddess of fertility, motherhood, and the Milky Way. The Egyptians considered the swath of stars under her special protection to be a river across the sky, and hence Hathor was associated with the yearly inundation of the Nile. She also possessed some of the attributes of Sekhmet, a destroyer goddess of the old kingdom of Upper Egypt, and the drunkenness festival celebrated both the beginning of the annual flood and the mythical occasion on which Sekhmet was diverted from the extermination of humanity by her fellow gods, who provided her with beer disguised to look like blood. After drinking seven thousand jars, she lapsed into a drooling slumber, and while she slept, the gods who had opposed her consolidated their hold on creation. In celebration of their ingenuity, a special red-colored beer was drunk at the festival, in sufficient quantities to induce similar stupors.

  The annual rise of the Nile was also associated with Osiris, god of the dead, of life, of vegetable regeneration, and of wine. In the dynastic era, Egypt had become a producer as well as an importer of irp. It remained an elite beverage, hence its protection by the most important deity in the Egyptian pantheon. After a fashion, Osiris and wine were made for one another. According to legend, he had died and been reborn, and the vine was a natural example of renewal—every winter it withered back to its roots, every spring it put forth new shoots. The end and resurrection of Osiris were celebrated over the Oag festival, immediately preceding that of the Drunkenness of Hathor. For the duration of its festivities Osiris was known as “the lord of irp through the inundation,” and the hieroglyphics that constitute the event’s name show three wine jars on a table, with a fourth being offered by a human hand. In the latter stages of the dynastic era, the worship of Osiris, and consumption of wine, became even more closely intertwined. His devotees, after prayers and rituals, would eat bread and drink wine in the belief that these were the transubstantiated flesh and blood of their divinity.

  Wine, as befits its status as a luxury with divine associations, was manufactured with much more sophisticated methods, and with a great deal more care, than any other agricultural product. The Egyptians dedicated many slaves, and much land, toward perfecting its quality. Their fascination with wine marks the appearance of a new bond between mankind and a type of alcoholic beverage. Not only was it food, and liquid inspiration, it also was capable of stimulating the taste buds in a manner that no other edible substances could. Whereas a loaf of bread was more or less the same all over Egypt, the irp from neighboring vineyards might taste radically different, and the Egyptians set about classifying these variations.

  A large number of amphorae of their ancient vintages have survived in the graves of pharaohs and other potentates, where they were placed to refresh the dead in the afterlife, and as offerings to Osiris. Most were marked with a description of their contents—where, when, and by whom they had been made. An early example from the burial chamber of King Zoser, the first Egyptian ruler to be entombed in a pyramid, announced that its wine came from the “vineyard of the red house of the king’s house in the town of Senpu in the western nomes.” As the dynastic era progressed, labeling became more sophisticated, and included reflections on the merit of the wine as well as its provenance. Good irp was described as nfr, very good as nfr nfr, and very very good as nfr nfr nfr. Moreover, instead of spoiling over time like other ingredients of the pharaonic diet, the flavors of nfr, or better irp, were believed to improve with age, and some of the wines discovered alongside the mummified remains of their owners have labels declaring them to be several decades old at the time of their interment. Given that the average life expectancy at the time was only forty, such senior vintages most likely were buried after their creators.

  The analysis of the residues in various graveside amphorae has enabled us to augment the information provided by the ancient labels and to determine what color of wine each one contained. Recent tests carried out on amphorae from the tomb of King Tutankhamen (d. 1322 BC) confirm that he drank both reds and whites, from different estates within his dominions. The boy king was buried with twenty-six wine jars, containing vintages up to thirty-six years old, produced by fifteen different winemakers. One such, labeled “Year 5. Wine of the House-of-Tutankhamen Ruler-of-the-Southern-On, l.p.h.[in] the Western River. By the chief vintner Khaa,” proved to have contained a red, whereas “Year 5. Sweet wine of the Estate of Aton of the Western River. Chief vintner Nakht” was white. The different colors were stacked at opposite cardinal points of the tomb, suggesting a further level of discrimination, whose meaning has been lost. The grave goods also included King Tut’s favorite wine-cup—an alabaster chalice.

  The systematic preparation of alcoholic drinks was surprisingly quick to spread from the Middle East to northern Europe. In the same centurythat King Scorpion was accumulating jars of Levantine wine for his afterlife, the inhabitants of a distant island surrounded by a cold sea were making merry on truly psychoactive brews. The cultivation of cereals had reached Germany by 5000 BC and Britain a few centuries later. Crops originating in the Fertile Crescent had appeared in the Orkney Islands in the far north of Scotland by about 3800 BC, where they were used to make beer. It is not known if the Scottish discovered fermentation independently, or whether the process traveled alongside the Middle Eastern cereals they employed in their brews.

  The settlement of Skara Brae in the Orkneys, whose stone dwellings have been preserved by virtue of having been buried beneath a sand dune for many thousands of years, provides much in the way of circumstantial evidence about the drinking habits of its Neolithic population. Pottery jars with a capacity of up to thirty gallons have been found in several dwellings, and the analysis of a greenish slime in the bottom of one such vessel confirms that it held an alcoholic beverage made from barley and oats, which had been flavored with meadowsweet and spiced up with deadly nightshade, henbane, and hemlock. These last additives are hallucinogenic, and lethal in the right quantities. Henbane induces blurred vision, dilated pupils, rapid heartbeat, dizziness, nausea, euphoria, and hallucinations in very small doses; hemlock is best know as a neurotoxin that paralyzes before it kills; and deadly nightshade, three juicy berries of which can be fatal, speeds the pulse and gives its consumer the sensations of flight. Clearly, the inhabitants of Skara Brae were drinking for effect rather than to satisfy their hunger or their thirsts.

  Other Neolithic sites throughout the British Isles also provide evidence of both alcohol and drunkenness. At Durrington Walls, for instance, a settlement adjacent to Stonehenge, many hearths have been uncovered that are distinguished by the quantity of animal bones and smashed pottery vessels they contain—clearly visitors to the sacred complex feasted long and drank deep. Indeed, it is likely that a culture of intoxication existed in Britain and much of Europe prior to the introduction of cereal c
rops and beer. Paleobotanical remains, and the entoptic phenomena depicted in cave paintings dating to more than thirty thousand years ago, show that its inhabitants consumed cannabis and opium poppies for pleasure. It is easy to understand how alcohol was welcomed as a new method of generating an altered state of consciousness.

  The conceit that the purpose of alcoholic beverages was to make people drunk rather than merely to nourish them was also apparent on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean during the late Neolithic era, notably among the Mayans of Central America. The Mayans were a sophisticated civilization who, by 1000 BC, had established large cities with monumental architecture and who had developed the arts to a very high degree of excellence. They were a mead-drinking culture, who flavored their mead with the bark of the balche tree. In addition to collecting wild honey, they kept hives of a native species of stingless bees in and around their huts to provide a secure source of raw materials for their brews. They also made a fermented drink from corn, whose intoxicating properties are confirmed in their creation myth, the Popol Vuh. Mayan drinking appears to have been a ceremonial as well as hedonistic activity. It was an act of communicating with the spirit world, and compulsory on certain ritual occasions. They do, however, seem to have viewed drunkenness in a comical as well as serious light, and produced beautiful glazed cups, some of which depict humorous scenes of drinkers, and also grotesque pottery figurines of inebriates.

  Similar evidence as to the preparation of alcoholic drinks in ancient times has been found in India and other Asian countries, and in Nubia in Africa. Indeed, by about 1000 BC, all over the world, wherever humanity had settled in villages or towns, alcohol was consumed. The parallel evolution of drinking in such disparate cultures as Pharaonic Egypt and Neolithic Scotland implies that our predecessors in all these places made a special place for alcohol in their cultures, whether as food, as an intoxicant, as a medicine, or as a status symbol. Despite, however, the wealth of archaeological evidence, we have no direct proof as to their feelings about this equivocal fluid. Did they attribute a spiritual significance to every drop they swallowed, as if it were a magic potion? Were any of them critical of drinking and drunkenness, or was intoxication considered to be a commonplace and wholly natural condition?

  2 BACCHANAL

  But when Orion and Sirius are come into mid-heaven, and rosy-fingered Dawn sees Arcturus, then cut off all the grape-clusters . . . and bring them home. Show them to the sun ten days and ten nights: then cover them over for five, and on the sixth day draw off into vessels the gifts of joyful Dionysus.

  —Hesiod, Works and Days (ll. 609-617)

  The first civilization to leave a coherent account of its thoughts on alcohol, and to enumerate its benefits and detriments, was that of classical Greece—a loose association of city-states united by language, religious beliefs, and culture, located on the edges and islands of the Aegean Sea. These states appeared around the twelfth century BC and, by 700 BC, had so prospered that they had established a network of colonies throughout the Mediterranean—in Sicily, France, Spain, and North Africa. Alcohol, specifically wine, played a pivotal role in Greek culture. Our word wine derives from their oin, whose consumption was considered to be both one of the defining characteristics of Hellenic civilization and a point of difference between its members and the population of the rest of the world, whom they termed barbaroi, or barbarians. Wine was omnipresent in Hellenic society. It was used as an offering to their deities; as a currency to buy rare and precious things from distant countries; and it was drunk formally, ritually, as a medicine, and to assuage thirst. In some Greek states such as Athens its consumption could be a civic duty. At the great public feasts officials known as oinoptai oversaw its distribution and ensured that all present got their fair share, and such equality of portions was the seed from which grew the concept of demokratia, or “people power.”

  The central place of wine in Greek civilization was established during its heroic age and is apparent in its earliest literary works. The Iliad and the Odyssey, the two great epic poems of Homer, which tell of the siege of Troy by a Greek army and the voyage home of one of its leaders, Odysseus, are suffused with references to wine and its powers, and set out the etiquette surrounding its consumption. They evoke a warrior ethos, which venerated mortal combat, meat feasts, and the liberal consumption of wine. Wine was the drink of fighting men, the indispensable lubricant of their culture of death and honor, of sacking cities, of carrying off armor, cattle, and women. All their rituals were punctuated with libations of wine—the gods did not pay attention otherwise. Drink also had the power to sanctify the words of men. Wine made warriors speak the truth, and an oath sealed with wine had greater weight than one celebrated with a cup of water.

  When Greece passed from its heroic to its classical age, its inhabitants were struck by an outburst of creativity unprecedented in the history of humanity. Science, philosophy, the decorative and figurative arts, and the concept of democracy were invented, examined, or practiced with more imagination and success than ever recorded before. The principal source of this torrent of inspiration was the city-state of Athens, acknowledged among its peers in the fifth century BC to be the leader in matters cultural. This century, so rich in stimulating events (Athens was at war on average once every decade), and this town, where it would have been possible to have known Socrates, Praxiteles, Plato, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Hippocrates, and Anaxagoras, together have left a treasure trove of opinions about alcohol, specifically wine. From this cultural age of gold a coherent portrait emerges. Poets, playwrights, politicians, and philosophers set down their feelings about wine, which generally were enthusiastic. Their compliments were almost universal, their warnings few, if dire. Wine was a force for good, a substance that enabled people to relax while simultaneously elevating their minds, inspiring drinkers to “laughter and wisdom and prudence and learning.” According to the epic poet Panyasis:

  Wine is like fire, an aid and sweet relief,

  Wards off all ills and comforts every grief,

  Wine can of every feast the joys enhance,

  It kindles soft desire, it leads the dance.

  Not only were the Greeks passionate about wine, they were also discriminating drinkers. Like the Egyptians, with whom they traded and from whom they may have learned some of the skills of winemaking, they believed certain vineyards had been blessed with magical soil and that their vintages cast a spell on people lucky enough to drink them. Instead, however, of labeling them nfr nfr and leaving it at that, Greek poets rhapsodized over their favorites:

  There is a wine which Saprian they call,

  Soon as the seals from whose rich amphorae fall,

  Violets and roses mix their lovely scent,

  And Hyacinths, in one rich fragrance blent;

  You might believe Jove’s nectar sparkled there,

  With such ambrosial odor reeks the air.

  While some vineyards produced wine with sensational flavors, others were believed to generate peculiar side effects, not all of them desirable. The wine of Heraea in Arcadia, for example, was reputed to “drive men out of their senses and make women inclined to pregnancy.” Moreover, certain vintages were reckoned to possess specific medicinal qualities. There were special wines for loosening the bowels or calming their wind, for sweetening the breath, and for healing wounds and cancers. Indeed Hippocrates (d. 370 BC), the father of Western medicine, advocated the use of wine to treat every illness he had identified, bar one—should a patient be suffering from “an overpowering heaviness of the brain,” then “there must be total abstinence from wine.”

  Notwithstanding the care taken in their manufacture, the taste and appearance of Greek wines would shock modern palates. Archaeological evidence suggests that most were resinated—i.e., were treated with and flavored by the gum of the terebinth tree. The purpose of this additive was to retard the oxidation process and prevent the wine from becoming vinegar. Other common additives included seawater, spices, and honey. Furthe
rmore, wine was not filtered when it was made and had to be strained before being served, lest the drinker choke on stalks, pits, and other such detritus.

  As a general rule, the Greeks did not drink their beloved nectar straight but mixed it with water. This habit, according to the physician Philomides, could be traced back to a happy accident—once upon a time in the heroic age, while a group of Greeks were drinking by the seashore, a violent thunderstorm broke out that drove them undercover and topped up their wine bowl with water. When they returned after the storm had passed, they tasted the mixture and found it to be far more pleasant, and far less inflammatory, than neat wine. Inspiration for the beverage was credited to Zeus, the Thunderer, king of the gods, who ruled the world from Mount Olympus; and who was toasted thereafter at formal gatherings “as the originator of rain-storms, [and] the author of the painless mixture derived from the mingling of wine and rain.”

  The Greeks considered the consumption of unmixed wine to be not only uncivilized but also perilous. The risk it posed to manners was documented by the philosopher Plato: “The Scythians and Thracians, both men and women, drink unmixed wine, which they pour on their garments, and this they think a happy and glorious institution.” The danger it represented to unwary drinkers was proven by the example of the Spartan general Cleomenes, who had been sent to sack the city of Argos but had destroyed instead the shrine of the god of the same name, then led his forces home, claiming to have been distracted by an omen. Cleomenes went mad and died shortly afterward, and his “own countrymen declared that his madness proceeded not from any supernatural cause whatsoever, but only from the habit of drinking wine unmixed with water, which he learnt of the Scythians.”

  There were also risks associated with drinking mixed wine, and although the Greeks generally considered it to be liquid joy, they acknowledged it was capable of producing painful and sometimes dangerous side effects. The tendency of drinking to cause a hangover was noted, and Greek literature contains advice on how to avoid, and how to cure, the headaches and nausea that followed a binge. The key to avoidance was quality—good wine was less likely, according to the poet Philyllius, to make the drinker “feel seedy.” As for cures, boiled cabbage eaten the following day was considered to be the best way to clear a fuzzy head, although some drinkers felt the cure was more painful than the ailment, and the combination of rank-smelling cabbage, a sore brain, and a sense of queasiness to be an unnecessary compound of evils—“stern misfortune’s unexpected blow,” in the words of the poet Amphis.