Archaeologists from the University of Haifa and two American universities have uncovered an ancient wine cellar at Tel Kabri in Western Galilee.
"This is a very important discovery," said Professor Eric Cline of George Washington University. "As far as we know, this is the largest and most ancient wine cellar in the ancient east."
Forty jugs were found with a total volume of 2,000 liters. This would be the equivalent of a modern wine cellar with 3,000 bottles.
The present season of excavations at Tel Kabri, led by Dr. Assaf Yasur-Landau, senior researcher at the Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies at the University of Haifa, together with Professor Eric Cline of George Washington University and Dr. Andrew Koh from Brandeis University, has focused on the palace of the city's rulers, which was built about 3,850 years ago, in the Middle Bronze Age. The palace stood for at least 300 years and at one point covered an area of 6,000 square meters (1.5 acres) and was at least two stories high.
In previous seasons, said Dr. Yasur-Landau, the excavators discovered a massive banquet hall with residue from feasts of meat for over 500 people. Each guest enjoyed cuts of meat that weighed more than 500 grams (1.1 pounds). Now, it appears, he and his colleagues have found the massive wine collection that allowed banqueters to wash down all that meat.
Archaeologists found a storage room about of 15 square meters (160 square feet) next to the banquet hall. At first, they uncovered a single jug that was about a meter high. The more they dug, they more jugs they found until they discovered that the room had contained no less than 40 jugs with a total volume of 2,000 liters (530 gallons).
The archaeologists say their next step is to try to reconstruct the recipe and replicate the 3,600-year-old wine.
Read more at:
http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=13547
Something is not right. This message is just to keep things from messing up down the road