Friday, October 11, 2013

News about Greek (Macedonian) wine

In my earlier article Greek wine, not so Greek after all I explained that wine was domesticated for the first time in southeastern Anatolia at some point between 8,500 and 5,000 BC and that the birthplace of the world’s first known domesticated plants is to be sought in Mesopotamia.


A recent discovery approximately 2 km from the ancient city of Philippi showed  the oldest samples of wine ever recorded in Europe, dating back to 4,200 BC, which in fact is confirming the earlier statements made above. It happened that one of the houses in the prehistoric settlement of Dikili Tash revealed quantities of carbonized grape berries, duly pressed and stored in pots.

This proves indeed that the juice was collected from the grapes but immediately the archaeologists are talking about wine. I am in no position to discuss their theory but I still wonder if grape juice automatically means wine in this case for we should have found other tools to confirm this theory – no?

Anyway, this is close enough to Alexander’s homeland to make the story believable.

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