Summary: Israeli researchers succeeded in a long-brewing project of making beer using yeasts extracted from ancient clay vessels dated from 5,000 years ago.
then you shall turn it into money and bind up the money in your hand and go to the place that the LORD your God chooses and spend the money for whatever you desire—oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves. And you shall eat there before the LORD your God and rejoice, you and your household. – Deuteronomy 14:25-26 (ESV)
Drink Like an Egyptian
Archaeologists and microbiologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and four Israeli universities teamed up to study yeast colonies found in microscopic pores in ancient pottery shards. The pottery came from Egyptian, Philistine and Judean archaeological sites in Israel, and were dated to a span from the end of the 4th millennium BC to the mid 1st millennium BC. Researchers brewed five kinds of beer, and after conducting a taste test, concluded that the Philistine brew was best.
“This ancient yeast allowed us to create beer that lets us know what ancient Philistine and Egyptian beer tasted like,” said Ronen Hazan, a microbiologist at Hebrew University and lead researcher along with IAA archeologist Yitzhak Paz.
“By the way, the beer isn’t bad. Aside from the gimmick of drinking beer from the time of King Pharaoh, this research is extremely important to the field of experimental archaeology — a field that seeks to reconstruct the past,” explained Hazan. “Our research offers new tools to examine ancient methods, and enables us to taste the flavors of the past.”
“What we discovered was that yeast can actually survive for a very, very long time without food,” said Hebrew University microbiologist Michael Klutstein. “Today we are able to salvage all these living organisms that live inside the nanopores and to revive them and study their properties.”
Klutstein first tried and succeeded in resurrecting yeast from an empty beer bottle that was just a couple of years old. After that, he and his colleagues wondered how far back they could take their experimental process. Their technique involved using a growth medium composed of various sugars and liquids to provide enough nutrients to “wake up” the very old, dormant yeast.
The IAA provided the team with two dozen ceramic beer vessels from three different time periods found in excavations around the country. There were 2,600-year-old beer jugs from a Persian-era palace in southern Jerusalem, 3,000-year-old Philistine pots from an archeological dig in Tel Aviv, and vessels from an Egyptian brewery near Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip said to be 5,000 years old.
First Fermented Drinks Resurrected
Other researchers of early beers, such as University of Pennsylvania archaeologist Patrick McGovern, have concocted drinks based on ancient recipes and residue analysis of ceramics. But this is the first time fermented drinks have been made from revived ancient yeasts, according to the Israeli scientists.
The team identified a total of six different strains of yeast by sequencing the genome of each specimen. One turned out to be a distant cousin of a strain still used in the brewing process in Ethiopia and Zimbabwe today. With help from local Israeli craft brewers, the team was able to use five of those strains, along with modern ingredients like hops and barley, to brew fresh beer.
The Importance of Beer
The Bible prohibits the abuse of alcoholic beverages in many places (such as Isaiah 5:11 and Proverbs 20:1). It was forbidden to priests. But in a few places, drinking in moderation was encouraged to gladden the heart (Psalm 104:15) or for the weak and weary (Prov.31:6, 1 Tim. 5:23). Deuteronomy 14:26 includes wine and strong drink as part of the prescribed Israelite celebration before the Lord. Wine was the primary alcoholic drink for the Israelites, but scholars have discovered evidence that wine was usually mixed with water in ancient times (sometimes as much as 20 parts water to one part wine).
There is disagreement about the definition of the Hebrew term for “strong drink” (shekar). It may have been a broad term for all alcoholic drinks including beer. However, Number 28:7-10 uses shekar for the drink offering, yet in Leviticus 2:11 we read that offerings on the altar that contained leaven were prohibited. Since beer was considered leavened, at least in this instance beer was not the intended meaning of Shekar. Some have proposed that “new wine” (fermenting for only a short period) may be the intended meaning of shekar in Numbers 28.
While the hills of Israel were more suitable for vineyards, beer was a staple of the daily diet for people in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Early Egyptian texts refer to a variety of different brews, such as “iron beer,” ”friend’s beer,” and “beer of the protector.”
Beer played a very important role in ancient times. It was associated with great power, had religious significance and was thought to have healing properties. In actuality, It would have been one of the healthier options for drinking because often, the untreated water available was contaminated with harmful microorganisms that the brewing process would destroy. By some estimates, people drank up to three liters of beer per day. It should be noted however, that (similar to wine) ancient beer had a much lower alcohol content because modern beers often contain added sugars, yeasts, or even distilled alcohol in order to boost their alcohol contents.
Tel Es-Safi in Philistine City of Gath
Bar Ilan University archaeologist Aren Maeir was part of the excavation of the ancient Philistine beer pots found at Tel es-Safi, the biblical city of Gath. Maeir jokingly compared the revival of the long-dormant yeast to the resurrection of the extinct dinosaurs in the Jurassic Park movies. Except, he pointed out, in the film “the dinosaurs eat the scientists. Here, the scientists drink the dinosaurs.”
Maeir noted that these findings reinforce the typical image the Bible portrays of Israel’s arch-enemies, the “drunken Philistines,” who were a serious and recurring threat. The Israelite judge Samson is famous for having many unpleasant dealings with the Philistines, who dominated the Israelites during the time he judged. Samson’s marriage to a Philistine woman caused many nasty clashes with the Philistines (Judges 14).
Samson ended up naming a place near the city of Gath, Ramath Lehi, meaning “hill of the jawbone” because it was where he beat one thousand Philistines to death with the jawbone of a donkey (Judges 15:17). The Philistines eventually had their revenge after Delilah betrayed Samson so he could be captured. He died along with 3,000 Philistines when he caused the collapse of the building he was “entertaining” in, by pushing down the pillars as the Philistines celebrated their god Dagon.
Gath was one of the five main cities of the Philistines during the Iron Age. Located in northeastern Philistia, close to the border of Judah, Gath is often mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. Egyptian inscriptions have been found that confirm its existence. The location most favored as the city of Gath is the archaeological mound known as Tell es-Safi in Arabic or Tel Zafit [Tzafit] in Hebrew, located inside Tel Zafit National Park where some of the beer yeast was unearthed. The Philistines’ close ties to the Egyptians helps explain the prevalence of beer-drinking there.
The Philistines were the main enemies of the Israelites after their exodus from Egypt with Moses. They were in a state of almost perpetual war, before the Assyrian and Babylonian Empires came along. The Philistines even captured the Ark of the Covenant for a few months (1 Sam. 5-6). It was David who helped subdue the Philistines. Eventually, the Philistines lost their independence to Assyria, where they disappeared as a distinct ethnic group by the late 5th century BC.
Possibility of Reviving Other Foods
Reconstructing the ancient beer “opens up a whole new field of the possibility that perhaps other microorganisms survived as well,” creating a portal into more tasting of past cultures, said Maeir. He is hopeful about the prospect of restoring other fares such as cheese, wine and pickles, because fermented foods are the most challenging subjects of study within the field of experimental archaeology.
“We tried to recreate some of the old flavors that people in this area were consuming hundreds and thousands of years ago,” said Shmuel Naky, a craft brewer from the Jerusalem Beer Center, who helped produce the beer and mead. He noted that the revived beer has a complex taste due to the attributes produced by the ancient yeast which “have a very crucial impact on flavor.”
Conclusion
An ancient beer tasting event was held and experts from the International Beer Judge Certification Program were invited. The testers determined the brew was high quality and safe for consumption. Their tasting notes included descriptions of the beer as being multifaceted in flavor, consisting of spicy and fruity tastes, and even a hint of green apple in the case of the Persian beer.
The next goal of the researchers is to pair the resurrected yeasts with ancient beer recipes to better reproduce drinks from antiquity. Findings from this study were published in the journal of the American Society for Microbiology.
It is amazing that modern technology can bring back microorganisms from thousands of years ago – and we can taste beer with the same taste as it had back then. Learning more about what ancient people were drinking gives us more context to better understand the events and messages in the Bible – and helps us all to Keep Thinking!
TOP PHOTO: Scientists, including Michael Klutstein (far left) raise a glass of beer brewed using ancient yeast resurrected from 3 and 5-thousand-year-old vessels. (credit: Vaniv Berman, IAA)
