Viticulture in Egypt

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Depiction of Egyptian viticulture from grave TT261

The viticulture in Egypt has a millennia-old tradition. This is evidenced by the depiction of winemaking in various reliefs .

Antiquity

Main article: Wine in ancient Egypt

One of the first Egyptian rulers, the pharaoh Scorpio I , was born around 3150 BC. Buried with 700 jugs of wine as grave goods. This wine was imported from the southern Levant , which was one of the most important growing regions for wine at the time. An Egyptian wine production, which was however only limited, can be traced back to 3,000 BC. For his physical well-being in the afterlife , Pharaoh Tutankhamun (around 1350 BC) was also given wine in jugs in his grave ( KV62 ), 26 of which had been preserved. The exact winery , often even the parcel of origin and the winemaker, are recorded on these . For example, on the jug with the find no. 571 ( Egyptian Museum Kairo JE 62307) to read the inscription "Sweet wine of the house Aton from Karet, cellar master Ramose". 23 jugs contained wines from years 4, 5 and 9 of Tutankhamun's reign.

During the Roman period of Egypt, large quantities of wine were exported to Rome .

Modern times

Today, wine is grown on an area of ​​around 57,000 hectares , primarily for the production of table grapes . The reason for this is that Muslims are prohibited from consuming alcohol, only the ethnic-religious minority of Christian Copts consumes wine, especially for liturgical purposes. The amount of wine produced annually is only 27,000 hectoliters in mainly nationalized wineries. The most important grape variety is Muscat d'Alexandrie . Viticulture would not be possible in Egypt without artificial irrigation .

literature

Web links

Commons : Viticulture in Egypt  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Günter Dreyer : Umm el-Qaab 1. The predynastic royal tomb Uj and its early written documents (= archaeological publications of the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo. (AV) Volume 86). 1st edition, von Zabern, Mainz 1998, ISBN 3-8053-2486-3 , p. 92
  2. Manfred Dworschak: Viticulture - raster search underground . In: Spiegel issue 23/2006, p. 175.