->8 Lutz, Viticulture and Brewing. 



gave special names to their vineyards, it seems that if any 

 borrowing occured, in this instance the Babylonians were the 

 borrowers ^ In Northern Babylonia the conditions were more 

 favorable to the vine. In some localities, we may suppose, vines 

 even flourished luxuriantly. Nabon. 606, lo and 869, 5 show that 

 branches bearing from fifty to a hundred grapes were no rarit)^ 

 The Babylonian wine was called nectar by Chaereus in Athen. 



I, p. 29 f More extensive viticulture was introduced into Baby- 

 Ionia during the time of the Macedonians-. During the century 

 preceding the advent of Islam the wines of Babylonia were 

 renowned and exported to Arabia. According to ' Abid, XXVI, 3 

 the wine matured in Babylonia was of a pale color: 



^ '' -- '^ -^ ^ 



The kings of Assyria seem to have shown a great interest in the 

 viticulture of Assyria. According to Herodotus I, c. 1 93 Assyria 

 suffered from too moist a climate, which was detrimental to 

 the raising of the vine. Herodotus, however, is emphatically 

 wrong. Assyria w^as preeminently a land of corn and wine. 

 Sanherib himself boasts that his land is such, according to 



II. Kings 18, 32 a""!?-!?^ znb f-iX 'Ir''-|^-|^ yr^^ f-iS. Strabo speaks 

 about the vines of Mesopotamia ^\ Asurnasirpal planted vine- 

 yards in Kalah*, while Sanherib tried to acclimatize all kinds 

 of foreign vines in Nineveh ^. As a particularly good grade 

 of wine is mentioned the "mountain-wine''. It seems that the 

 wine of the mountain of Arzabia was one of the famous wines 

 in Assyrian times'^. Hl-hi was likewise a mountain renowned 

 for its vines. In the legend of the god of pestilence, the god 

 is said to have cut down its grapes. The mountain called 

 Habur (II R 51, No. 1, 3 b) probably produced the Karan Ha- 



i) The ne-sag in Gudea's cylinder A is ujidoubtedly the "raised plot", 

 or, "the terrace" of the vineyard. 



2) Slrabo, XV, 3. 



3) Strabo, geogr, XV. "\'ines on the bank of the Araxes (Xenoph. Anab. 

 I, 4, 19); wine of Caenae (ibid. II, 4, 28). For wines of Babylonia in pre-islamic 

 times, see Lebid, I, 7 ; XVII, 37 and XL, 47. 



4) I R 27, No. 2, 8. 5) CT XXVI, 8, 16 ff. 



6) For the mountain- vires which grew on the heights see CT XXVI, S, 2 1 

 and Thureau-Dangin, Huiiieme campagne de Sargon, line 239: "[kima']?" gap- 

 ni tar-bit sadi-i eli ubanatsada Ar-za-bi-a a-su-ni". 



