A discovery that springs up.
Large wine presses, thousands of jar fragments, vast warehouses to store production: Israeli authorities unveiled on Monday what would be one of the largest production sites for Late Antiquity wines in southern Israel , at the gates of the Gaza Strip.
Far from the image of Epinal of bucolic vineyards, this site devoted to the wine industry seems to have been an important complex, of an almost industrial scale before its time.
It could be preserved as such in a future archaeological park assured Monday the Israeli Antiquities.
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The site, located in Yavne, about fifteen kilometers from Tel Aviv, is worth it.
Over the past two years, Israeli archaeologists have unearthed a vast site for the production of Byzantine wines, dating from around the 6th century.
This set was composed of five presses of approximately 225 m2 - used for the pressing at the foot of the grapes -, two large octagonal vats to collect the must, as well as an amphora making workshop, which archaeologists were able to use. find the pottery kilns.
Enough to produce two million liters of wine per year, estimates the Israel Antiquities Authority, which supervised the site.
A major Byzantine-era winery discovered in Israel
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"
We were surprised to find here a sophisticated 'factory' devoted to the production of wine in industrial quantities
," said archaeologists Elie Hadad, Liat Nadav-Ziv and Jon Selingman, who led the excavations, in a statement.
“The construction of the large presses has been carefully planned
,
”
Jon Selingman told the Israeli daily
Haaretz
.
Not only are they symmetrical, but their different elements are all the same.
They were built with the same movement, like an ambitious industrial project ”
.
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The Byzantine drink was marketed throughout the Mediterranean basin.
But should we fear this oriental picket produced in large quantities?
No, according to ancient sources, for whom the wine of Gaza was a famous wine, with a
“snow-
white
”
robe
, researchers interviewed by
Haaretz said
.
If it did not enjoy the same praise as the great Roman wine of Falerne, the quality of the pearly nectar from Gaza should not be too red with its aromas to believe its presence at the imperial feast organized in 566 for the coronation of Justin. II in Constantinople.
An amphora production center
Wine was not the only production at the Yavné site. His ceramic workshop produced elongated amphorae, typical of the region, in order to store and transport the countless liters concocted on site. The production of these pottery must have reached a frantic pace to keep pace with wine production, say the researchers.
“They were like our plastic bottles today,
” said Jon Selingman.
We didn't bother trying to fix them, so we threw them at every crack. Tens or hundreds of thousands of these amphorae have been made here. ”
Excavations carried out by the Israel Antiquities Authority have also uncovered, at the same Yavne site, wine presses dating from the 5th and 4th centuries BC.
AD, at a time when the Achaemenid Persian Empire ruled much of the Middle East.
A discovery that allows archaeologists to observe the persistence of the local wine industry over the centuries, from classical Persian antiquity to late Byzantine antiquity.
This centuries-old vein, however, gradually dries up from the Arab domination of the region in the 7th century.
Today, no local grape variety remains in Israel, whose contemporary wine is produced mostly from French bunches.
