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Breaking brew news: Fresco discovered in tomb of ancient Egyptian beer maker Khonso Em Heb |
SUDS CHRONICLES, PART 3--If you like making beer at home you share
something in common with the ancient Egyptians.
CNN reported this week that a multi-national archeological dig has
uncovered a fairly in tact 3200-year old tomb of the royal beer maker back in
the day.
Khonso Em Heb was described
by Egypt’s antiquities minister Mohamed Ibrahim as the chief maker of beer for
gods of the dead. Mr. Heb headed the
royal warehouses during the Ramesside pharaohs operating between 1,292 to 1,069
BC. He was also tasked with being the
royal brewer.
A Japanese team of
archaeologists headed by Jiro Kondo of Waseda University found the tomb near
Luxor, Egypt.
Commenting on news of the
discovery, Poo Mun Chou, an Egyptologist at Hong Kong’s Chinese University told
CNN that “alcohol in ancient Egypt was very important—not just in the terms of
daily consumption but also as an offering to the deities.” Poo says beer was very important to the
gods. (Folks, we’re not making any of this up).
Poo adds beer during the
millennium before Christ was very cheap compared with wines of the day. “Beer was a very popular drink for people of
all social strata.”
While the appeal of beer
across all social classes remains to this day, Professor Poo says the modern
drinker might struggle to recognize the barley or millet-based beverage of
ancient times.
"While it's a close
cousin to modern beer, it's manufacture was more primitive and they had to use
a tube to extract the liquid from below which would have had a fermented layer
of substance floating on the top of the jar," he said.
"It would have had
bubbles," he added.
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