The Vineyard, the Vintage, and the Making of Wine in the Ancient Orient. ^y 



was done in order to preserve the wine. It was also thought 

 to improve the flavor of the wine. Wine was sometimes also 

 put into skins, a mode which probabl}- prevailed throughout 

 all times of Egyptian history, whenever such wine was intended 

 to be taken on long journeys. Lepsius, Auszvahl, 12, 5 refers 



to this mode of storing the wine: 1k^ (j ( -wxaa^ ( RTfi.'v 



AAAAAA ^ 



; t\ "^ U( "-'^ t\ ^ y[ c^^, i. e., "theirwines 

 J J^ mill I 1^ li^. Jf Vlii^Sc^^;^^^;;^' 



which were stored in their cellars as well as in the skins"'. 

 When the wine had been stored away in the cellars, they 



No. 10. Pouring wine into iars (after Wilkinson, The Ancient Egyptians). 



were marked with wine labels. In Aeg. Z.^ 1883, p. 33fif., the 

 first Theban ostracon of this kind was discussed. It reads: 



n 



AAAAAA 

 AAAAAA 

 AA/^AAA 



^ (1 (1 ^ I ^ |t| n ^, "In the >'ear l . Good wine of the large 



irrigated terrain of the temple of Ramses II. in Per-Amon. The 

 chief of the wine-dressers, Tutmes". Many of such wine labels 

 have been published since by Spiegelberg', Hieratic Ostvaca 



i) The wine-skin is also called Q, a word used to denote more com- 

 monly the leather-bag and 



^5 ^ Rec. trav. 21, 77 and 96. 



