The world’s oldest high-production brewery revealed in Southern Egypt

A massive brewery which is believed to be 5000 years old is revealed by a team of archaeologists in Egypt. According to the tourism ministry, The high-production brewery is found at a funerary site in the Southern part of Egypt. 

The brewery site contains several units and about 40 earthenware pots which are arranged in two rows. In the statement released by the tourism ministry of Egypt on Facebook, it is said that the units were at North Abydos, Sohag, by a joint Egyptian-American team. 

 The secretary-general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, Mostafa Waziry quoted that the brewery possibly belongs to King Narmer’s era, and it is believed to “be the oldest high-production brewery in the world.”

King Narmer was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh and many historians believed that he was the founder of the First Dynasty and under his rule, Upper and Lower Egypt unified.

Many scholars believed that Narmer and Menes were the same people.

The statement further reads that the brewery was first discovered by British archeologists, but its location was not disclosed. 

According to Waziry the brewery is divided into eight large sections and each section contained 40 earthenware pots arranged in two rows as “units for beer production”.

Grain and water mixture was heated in vats for beer production, Each basin “held in place by levers made of clay placed vertically in the form of rings”.

Archaeologist Matthew Adams of New York University who is the head of mission along with Deborah Vischak of Princeton University said that  22,400 liters of beer were produced at these breweries at a time. 

The brewery “may have been built in this place specifically to supply the royal rituals that were taking place inside the funeral facilities of the kings of Egypt”, he said.

“Evidence for the use of beer in sacrificial rites was found during excavations in these facilities” he added.

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