Archaeologists Have Discovered An Incredibly Well-Preserved 2,000-Year-Old Greco-Roman Winery In Egypt

At the archaeological site of Abu Al-Matameer in the Nile Delta region of Egypt, archaeologists have excavated additional rooms of a 2,000-year-old Greco-Roman winery.

River Nile in Egypt. Life on the River Nile.
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Science

At the archaeological site of Abu Al-Matameer in the Nile Delta region of Egypt, archaeologists have excavated additional rooms of a 2,000-year-old Greco-Roman winery.

Archaeologists in Egypt have recently excavated a third area of a 2,000-year-old Greco-Roman winery along the Nile Delta at the archaeological site of Abu Al-Matameer in what is now the Beheira Governorate.

As Ahram Online reports, along with the third section of the Egyptian winery which was revealed after excavations, store galleries of the complex were also detected with a wall made of mud brick circling the whole area.

Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, explained that the many galleries of this Egyptian winery have highly unique and intricate architectural designs with plenty of mud brick walls. However, random pieces of limestone can also be found where mortar in the walls would normally be, and it is possible that the limestone was placed here to keep the rooms at an optimal temperature, according to Waziri.

“These blocks may have been used to achieve the temperature needed to preserve the wine.”

Very close to the two newly excavated areas of the Greco-Roman winery in Egypt was found a residential settlement, in whose quarters employees of the facility would have once lived.

In the storage rooms of the winery, Egyptian archaeologists discovered quite a sophisticated set-up as the rooms had been specially designed to be climate-controlled in order to keep the large amounts of wines held in them fresh and safe.

Archaeologists also unearthed many rare coins, pottery, kilns, and pots once used for cooking within the confines of this 2,000-year-old Egyptian winery, with a fair amount of the ancient pottery originally hailing from the Ptolemaic and Islamic periods.

The coins that were discovered had a long and illustrious history and were found to date all the way back from Alexander the Great’s successor Ptolemy I Soter, who reigned over Egypt from 323 BC to 285 BC, to the Islamic period after the conquest, which lasted from approximately 639 AD to 646 AD.

Small pieces of paint shards were discovered at the winery which archaeologist believe most likely coated the walls at one time, with traces of mosaic fragments also recovered from the site.

At the time of the Greco-Roman era, which can be traced back from the 4th century BC to around the 7th century AD, wineries such as this one along the Nile Delta were in high demand, with some of the finest wines in all of Egypt coming from this region.

Excavations are currently ongoing at the 2,000-year-old Greco-Roman winery in Egypt where the additional rooms were recently discovered.