Reconstructing ancient drinking habits

Archaeologists have long known that ancient Egyptians made and drank wine, but the wine’s color has remained unconfirmed. A team of scientists recently developed a chemical technique that can identify whether the wine once contained in ancient jars was red.

Rosa Maria Lamuela-Raventós and her colleagues at the University of Barcelona collected residues from the interiors of five ancient-Egyptian pottery jars at the British Museum in London and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.