Oldest Brewery in the World Discovered in Egypt

Constructed in 3150 BCE... Presumed Site of the First Dynasty Relic

▲The world's oldest presumed brewery excavated in Abydos, Egypt. (Source=Captured from the Facebook page of the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities)

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Jae-hee] The world's oldest presumed brewery has been excavated at the ancient site of Abydos in Egypt.

On the 13th (local time), the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced that Egyptian and American archaeologists have excavated a brewery estimated to have been established about 5,000 years ago during the reign of Pharaoh Narmer at Abydos on the west bank of the Nile, approximately 450 km south of Cairo.

Pharaoh Narmer was the first to unify ancient Upper and Lower Egypt, founding the First Dynasty that lasted from 3150 BCE to 2613 BCE.

Mustafa Waziri, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt, stated that the newly excavated brewery is "presumed to be the world's oldest mass-production brewery."

The Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities explained, "Ancient Egyptian breweries were first mentioned by British archaeologists in the early 1900s, but their exact locations had not been identified."

Subsequently, the Egypt-US archaeological team relocated the site and succeeded in the excavation.

The brewery consists of eight spaces measuring 20 meters in length, 2.5 meters in width, and 0.4 meters in depth.

In each space, about 40 pottery vessels used to heat a mixture of grains and water?the raw materials for beer?were arranged in two rows.

Matthew Adams, a professor at New York University who led the excavation, estimated that the brewery could produce about 22,400 liters of beer at one time and revealed that there is evidence that beer was used in sacrificial rituals in the ancient Egyptian kingdom.

He added, "The beer produced here was likely used in funerary facilities for the pharaoh during rituals."

Indeed, Abydos was the center of worship for Osiris, the god known as the "King of the Underworld" in Egyptian mythology, and is a necropolis where many tombs of early Egyptian dynastic pharaohs, including those of the First Dynasty, were constructed.

The fact that ancient Egyptians brewed beer has been confirmed in the past as well.

In 2015, pottery fragments used for brewing beer about 5,000 years ago in Egypt were discovered at a construction site in Tel Aviv, Israel.