Archaeologists find the oldest bottle of wine in the world: the discovery stunned them
Kyiv • UNN
Archaeologists have discovered a 2000-year-old bottle of wine with the cremated bones of a man in Andalusia. The discovery sheds light on the funeral rituals of the Roman period and the gender division in funeral practices.
Archaeologists have unearthed the world's oldest bottle of wine containing cremated human bones. This was reported by the Mirror, according to UNN.
Details
It is noted that the 2000-year-old glass bottle was discovered in a tomb five years ago in the historic city of Carmona, Andalusia. Earlier this year, it became known that a liquid was found inside the urn, which, as confirmed by analyzes, turned out to be wine. Dating back to the fourth century, this wine is one of the oldest ever found. The contents of the urn reflect the gender division in the funeral practices of Roman society.
Juan Manuel Roman, Carmona's municipal archaeologist, said: “At first, we were very surprised that one of the urns had liquid in it.
However, the surprises did not end there, and along with the gold ring, the wine also contained the man's cremated bones. This allowed us to better understand the funeral rituals of the Roman period in Spain. The researchers believe that it is “no coincidence” that the remains belong to a man, as the ancient Romans forbade women to drink wine, considering it a “man's drink.
Another bottle from the tomb contained the remains of a woman, but no traces of wine. Instead, it contained three amber jewelry pieces, a bottle of patchouli-scented perfume, and the remains of a silk cloth. These artifacts were placed in the tomb according to Roman beliefs about what the deceased would need to travel to the afterlife. They believed that items taken with them could be used after death.
According to scholars, the Roman funeral consisted of five stages, but there are no detailed descriptions of the ritual. The five stages consisted of a procession, cremation and burial, eulogy, feast, and commemoration. The Romans considered it very important to conduct proper ceremonies and burials so that evil spirits would not appear from the underworld.
