The Vineyard, the Vintage, and the Making of Wine in the Ancient Orient. (5q 



was closed, it was sealed and the name of the owner and the 

 quantity and quality of the content attached in writing. 



Babylonia has left us no monuments, which would illu- 

 strate the laying out of their vineyards and the process of 

 making grape-wine. But we may conjecture that in the low- 

 land of Babylonia viticulture was essentially the same as in 

 Egypt, where conditions were ver}- much alike, and that it 

 differed from that of Syria and Palestine. We had occasion 

 to refer above to the vineyard planted by Gudea, and we 

 found that this vineyard was planted on an artificially raised 

 plot of ground. This practise, probably, prevailed all over 

 Babylonia. Vine, however, was never extensively cultivated 

 in that country and the documents refer comparatively seldom 

 to wine, while they mention very often fruit-wines, such as 

 date-wine, and particularly a multitude of different kinds of 

 beer. It is strange, however, that at the earher stages of 

 Babylonian history, we never hear of "beer-houses", but that 

 the Code of Hammurabi, for instance, refers only to wine- 

 shopsjj'^e will have occasion in Chapter Four, to enter into 

 a detailed account of that part of Babylonian legislation, which 

 deals with the wineshops. Contrary to Babylonia, Assyria 

 cultivated the vine very extensively, in the vicinity of Nineveh 

 as well as in other parts of the land, since the vineplant grows 

 well in many districts of Assyria. The Ass}Tian monuments 

 represent the vines very realistically and with a great deal of truth 

 (see Illustrations Nos. 13 and 14). In the Assyrian documents there 

 is mention of an officer called rab karani. This title represents 

 the "Chief winemaster", and the office may refer to a state posi- 

 tion as well as to a position held in the service of some large 

 temple. Tablet K. 342 a und b ^ is important for our present 

 investigation, since it mentions not only the chief winemaster, 

 but also his assistant called '^'"^"sanu, i. e., the second (wine- 

 master). The text, moreover, deals with a transaction, in which 



i) (i) kunuk m.Zeru-u-ti rab karani (2) kunuk m. ar^uUlula-a-a ameiuJanui' 

 (3j 9 mane 15 ikil kaspu (4) ina i mane 5a SI"Gar-ga-mil (5) gi-nu-u 5a 

 Asursur (6) Ja '"A^ursur-reSu-i-Ji (7) ina pan m.Zeru-ti rab karani biti e55i 

 1 8) ina pan m. arljuUlula-a-a amfelugauu" (9) ar]juSimanu limu i6-kam (10) lim- 

 mu m.Sa-iluNabu-Ji'i-u amelureu(?) etc. The text is translated in Kohler and 

 Ungnad, Assyr. Rechtsurkunden. 



