World’s oldest wine found in 2000-year-old Roman tomb
An urn found in a tomb in Spain contained the cremated remains of a man, a gold ring and about 5 litres of liquid, which has been identified as now-discoloured white wine
By Soumya Sagar
21 June 2024
The 2000-year-old wine found in a Roman tomb in Carmona, Spain
Juan Manuel Román/University of Cordoba
A reddish liquid found in a 2000-year-old Roman mausoleum in Spain is the oldest known liquid wine in existence, a chemical analysis has revealed.
“I was surprised and full of disbelief,” says José Rafael Ruiz Arrebola at the University of Cordoba in Spain. “It seemed impossible that a liquid could have remained in this state for 2000 years.”
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Until now, a sealed vessel found near Speyer, Germany, and believed to be about 1700 years old, was thought to contain the oldest known wine, but it has never been opened.
The Spanish tomb, accidentally discovered in 2019 in Carmona, near Seville, dates from the 1st century AD and belonged to a wealthy family. Eight burial niches, carved in its walls, held six urns made from limestone, sandstone or glass. Half of them contained the cremated remains of women and the other half those of men. Two urns bore the names of the deceased: Hispanae and Senicio.
One of the glass urns, encased in a lead shell, contained bone remnants of a 45-year-old man, a gold ring bearing the image of the two-faced Roman god Janus, and approximately 5 litres of liquid.
