The Vineyard, the \'intage, and the Making of Wine in the Ancient Orient. t.C 



earthen jar, which is placed below the linen slough. To 

 twist it must have been a very difficult task. It generally 

 required four persons. A fifth person seen on the wall painting 

 of the tomb of Ismaih at Gizeh, of the fifth dynasty, seems 

 to keep both poles apart by holding the poles at the proper 

 distance with both his hands and his feet (see Illustration 

 No. 9). This is of course an acrobatic trick which it was im- 

 possible to perform. But these drawings are not faithful to 

 perspective. The fifth person was in the centre, but since 

 he could not be drawn without some part of his body being 



No. 9. The pressing of wine-lees (after Newberry, Percy E., El-Bersheh). 



hidden by the cloth, the artist chose this impossible position 

 for him. This person's work consisted in seeing that the wine 

 flowed exacth' into the large jar and that nothing was spilt. 



He is called skd si/is, 'TQ while the other men are the 

 smsw , n . 



While the winepress of Beni-Hasan referred to above shows 

 already a solid structure at the two ends of which the linen 

 slough is attached 1, the tombs of the Old Kingdom show us still 

 the more rude way with men wrenching the poles' in opposite 

 directions. This process of pressing the grapes in the slough 



(see Illustration No. 9) is designated bv the word "/, - 



- fl WdQ 

 in the Middle Kingdom. In Beni-Hasan 2 its orthography 



i) So also Caulfeild, T/ie Temple of the Kings of Abydos , Egypt. Res. 

 Account, 1902, pi. XX. 



2) Newberry, Beni-Hasan, I, pi. 29; 11, 4, 13 (PI. 29 in Newberry = 



L. D., II, 126). L. D., Ill, 163 = ^^; \^^~^ \^ ^"^'^ ^^""'^ 



