Jun 20, 2024 06:05 PM
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1048600
EXCERPTS: "At first we were very surprised that liquid was preserved in one of the funerary urns," explains the City of Carmona's municipal archaeologist Juan Manuel Román. After all, 2,000 years had passed, but the tomb's conservation conditions were extraordinary; fully intact and well-sealed ever since, the tomb allowed the wine to maintain its natural state, ruling out other causes such as floods, leaks inside the chamber, or condensation processes.
[...] Thanks to all this, they had their first evidence that the liquid was, in fact, wine. But the key to its identification hinged on polyphenols, biomarkers present in all wines. [...] the mineral salts present in the tomb's liquid are consistent with the white wines currently produced in the territory...
[...] The fact that the man's skeletal remains were immersed in the wine is no coincidence. Women in ancient Rome were long prohibited from drinking wine. It was a man's drink. And the two glass urns in the Carmona tomb are elements illustrating Roman society's gender divisions in its funerary rituals.
While the bones of the man were immersed in wine, along with a gold ring and other bone remains from the funeral bed on which he had been cremated, the urn containing the remains of the woman did not contain a drop of wine, but rather three amber jewels, a bottle of perfume with a patchouli scent, and the remains of fabrics, with initial analyses seeming to indicate that they were of silk.
The wine, as well as the rings, the perfume and the other elements were part of a funerary trousseau that was to accompany the deceased in their voyage into the afterlife... (MORE - missing details)
PAPER: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2024.104636
EXCERPTS: "At first we were very surprised that liquid was preserved in one of the funerary urns," explains the City of Carmona's municipal archaeologist Juan Manuel Román. After all, 2,000 years had passed, but the tomb's conservation conditions were extraordinary; fully intact and well-sealed ever since, the tomb allowed the wine to maintain its natural state, ruling out other causes such as floods, leaks inside the chamber, or condensation processes.
[...] Thanks to all this, they had their first evidence that the liquid was, in fact, wine. But the key to its identification hinged on polyphenols, biomarkers present in all wines. [...] the mineral salts present in the tomb's liquid are consistent with the white wines currently produced in the territory...
[...] The fact that the man's skeletal remains were immersed in the wine is no coincidence. Women in ancient Rome were long prohibited from drinking wine. It was a man's drink. And the two glass urns in the Carmona tomb are elements illustrating Roman society's gender divisions in its funerary rituals.
While the bones of the man were immersed in wine, along with a gold ring and other bone remains from the funeral bed on which he had been cremated, the urn containing the remains of the woman did not contain a drop of wine, but rather three amber jewels, a bottle of perfume with a patchouli scent, and the remains of fabrics, with initial analyses seeming to indicate that they were of silk.
The wine, as well as the rings, the perfume and the other elements were part of a funerary trousseau that was to accompany the deceased in their voyage into the afterlife... (MORE - missing details)
PAPER: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2024.104636