ANCIENT BEER FACTORY IS UNEARTHED IN EGYPT

Sun 14 February 2021:

An ancient high-production beer factory, possibly the oldest ever discovered, has been unearthed in Egypt, the country’s antiquities ministry said.

Researchers pinpointed the site in Abydos, an ancient city located in the desert roughly seven miles west of the Nile River, according to the Egyptian government.

Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said the factory was found in Abydos, an ancient burial ground located in the desert west of the Nile River, over 280 miles south of Cairo.

He said the factory apparently dates back to the region of King Narmer, who is widely known for his unification of ancient Egypt at the beginning of the First Dynastic Period (3150 B.C.- 2613 B.C.).

An ancient brewery has been unearthed in the Egyptian desert.

An ancient brewery has been unearthed in the Egyptian desert. (Ministry of Tourism and Antiquit)

Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said in a Facebook post on Saturday that the brewery dates back some 5,000 years to the era of Narmer, the pharaoh thought to have unified ancient Egypt.

The factory, comprised of eight sections — each measuring 66 feet by 8 feet — was found to have produced about 22,400 liters of beer at a time, according to the antiquities ministry.

Archaeologists found eight huge units — each is about 65-feet long and 8-feet wide. Each unit includes some 40 pottery basins in two rows, which had been used to heat up a mixture of grains and water to produce beer, Waziri said.

The brewery is thought to date to around 3,000 BC.

The brewery is thought to date to around 3,000 BC. (Ministry of Tourism and Antiquit)

The ministry said British researchers were aware of the brewery at the onset of the 1900s, but the factory’s exact location wasn’t determined until now.

The find was made by a joint Egyptian-American mission led by New York University scholar Matthew Adams and Princeton University professor Deborah Vischak.

Egypt has announced dozens of ancient discoveries in the past couple of years, in the hope of attracting more tourists.

The tourism industry has been reeling from the political turmoil following the 2011 popular uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

The sector was also dealt a further blow last year by the coronavirus pandemic.