King Tut likes to drink red wine

Tutankhamen's favorite drink is red wine. The results of the analysis of the remaining wine residues in the emperor's grave showed that.

Researcher Maria Rosa Guasch-Jane, said she created a process that helps archaeologists discover the color of ancient wine.

Guasch-Jane also found that the most valuable drink in ancient Egypt - shedeh - is made from red grapes.

The wine bottles of King Tutankhamun's time were labeled with the name of the product, the year of harvest, the origin and the grower, not the color of the wine, Guasch-Jane said.

It was not possible to determine the color of King Tut's wine until Guasch-Jane designed the process of determining the color compound not present in white wine, called syringic acid. To test his method, Guasch-Jane scraped scum in wine jars from the British Museum and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Two of them were taken from King Tut's tomb, discovered in 1922.

According to American archaeologist Patrick McGovern, the wine was first processed in 5,400 BC. He discovered the first trace of grape residue in Iran in 1994.

Wine does not originate from Egypt. Scientists believe that the first wine discovered in Egypt, in King Scorpion's tomb in 3125 BC, was produced in Jordan and transported 800 km by donkey and boat to Egypt. Then new grapes are grown in Egypt.

Research shows that ancient Egyptian kings and royal members drank alcohol regularly, and commoners only drank it on special occasions or festivals. The wine was also offered to the gods on the feast, and the king was buried with jars of wine and the dishes they used when they were alive.

MT