Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

  • Home
  • About
  • Editorial
  • Birthdays
  • Art & Beer

Socialize

  • Dribbble
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Flickr
  • GitHub
  • Google+
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • StumbleUpon
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
Powered by Head Quarters Built on WordPress
You are here: Home / Beers / Sumerian Beer: The Origins of Brewing Technology in Ancient Mesopotamia

Sumerian Beer: The Origins of Brewing Technology in Ancient Mesopotamia

November 28, 2011 By Jay Brooks 2 Comments

sumerian-tablet
Peter Damerow, from the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, in Berlin, has published online a lengthy paper about the origins of Sumerian brewing. Entitled Sumerian Beer: The Origins of Brewing Technology in Ancient Mesopotamia, it’s part of The Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI). The opening sentence gives a flavor of its purpose. “The following paper is concerned with the technology of brewing beer in the Sumerian culture of ancient Mesopotamia, which we know about from cuneiform texts of the 3rd millennium BC. and from reminiscences in later scribal traditions which preserved the Sumerian language and literature.”

It’s broken down in to seven sections:

  1. Introduction
  2. Overview of the sources
  3. Beer types and ingredients in proto-cuneiform documents
  4. Beer types and ingredients in the Old Sumerian period
  5. Beer types and ingredients in the neo-Sumerian period
  6. The brewing of beer
  7. What kind of beer did the Sumerians brew?

Sumerian-beer
Fig. 1: Impression of a Sumerian cylinder seal from the Early Dynastic IIIa period (ca. 2600 BC; see Woolley 1934, pl. 200, no. 102 [BM 121545]). Persons drinking beer are depicted in the upper row. The habit of drinking beer together from a large vessel using long stalks went out of fashion after the decline of Sumerian culture in the 2nd millennium BC.

I confess I haven’t read the whole thing yet, but I did download the pdf of it so I can put it on my iPad. Still, just from skimming it appears fairly interesting, and a worthy piece to read over the holidays.

Filed Under: Beers, Breweries, Editorial, Just For Fun, News Tagged With: Archeology, History, Science of Brewing



Comments

  1. Martyn Cornell says

    November 29, 2011 at 4:16 am

    Very interesting: the basic conclusion seems to be “we don’t really have much of a clue.” One statement, though, I have to disagree with – “The habit of drinking beer together from a large vessel using long stalks went out of fashion after the decline of Sumerian culture in the 2nd millennium BC.” This is still going on today in East Africa.

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Kort nyt: Tim Webb, ølfestivaller, World Beer Cup, Aarhus, Gundestrup, Lervig, historiske øl osv. says:
    December 2, 2011 at 3:53 pm

    […] Sumerian Beer: The Origins of Brewing Technology in Ancient Mesopotamia (Brookston Beer Bulletin) […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Northern California Breweries

Please consider purchasing my latest book, California Breweries North, available from Amazon, or ask for it at your local bookstore.

The Sessions

session_logo_all_text_1500

Next Session: Dec. 7, 2018
#142: One More for the Road
Previous Sessions
  • #141: Future of Beer Blogging
  • #140: Pivo
  • #139: Beer & the Good Life
  • #138: The Good in Wood
  • #137: German Wheat
Archive, History & Hosting

Enter your email address:

Typology Tuesday

Typology-png
Next Typology:
On or Before March 29, 2016
#3: Irish-Style Dry Stout
Previous Typologies
  • #2: Bock Feb. 2016
  • #1: Barley Wine Jan. 2016
Archive & History

Recent Posts

  • Beer In Ads #3651: Budweiser At The Lake February 26, 2021
  • Beer Birthday: Art Larrance February 26, 2021
  • Historic Beer Birthday: Frederick C. Miller February 26, 2021
  • Historic Beer Birthday: Gabriel Sedlmayr II February 26, 2021
  • Beer In Ads #3650: Out Fishing With Budweiser February 25, 2021

RSS Brookston Beer in Art

  • American HopsSusanna Harrison2020
    American HopsSusanna Harrison2020

Recent Comments

  • Angeline Ungerer on Historic Beer Birthday: M.K. Goetz
  • Dick DeShon on Historic Beer Birthday: M.K. Goetz
  • John hughes on Beer In Ads Special Edition: John Ireland’s The Gentle Art of Making Guinness
  • John hughesy on Beer In Ads Special Edition: John Ireland’s The Gentle Art of Making Guinness
  • Moe Peppers on Beer In Ads: #2859: A Clear Commitment
February 2021
S M T W T F S
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
28  
« Jan    

Find Something

Tag Cloud

Advertising Anheuser-Busch Announcements Ballantine Bay Area Belgium Brewers Association Brewing Equipment Budweiser Business California Christmas Europe Festivals France Germany Great Britain Guinness Health & Beer History Holidays Hops Humor Infographics Kegs Law Mainstream Coverage National Northern California Pabst Packaging Patent Pennsylvania Press Release Prohibitionists San Francisco Schlitz Science Science of Brewing Statistics The Netherlands UK Uncategorized United States Video