The Discovery Of Beer In Mesopotamia And Egypt

Beer, the first beverage appeared as a result of changed lifestyle for the early humans. Before, humans were nomads, who would follow their food (pg. 9). But starting about 12,000 years ago humans had picked up on a new lifestyle (pg. 9). These small bands of about 30 people were now settling down in more permanent areas and had abandoned their old ways of constantly traveling (pg. 9). This drastic turning point in human history seemed to primarily come from one reason, the discovery of beer (pg.11). As beer was basically formed from the gathering of barley and wheat, humans had to form some type of permanent residency, and abandon their old nomadic lifestyle (pg.11).

Beer was discovered because of the gathering of wild grains after the end of the Ice age in the Fertile Crescent, an area that was ideal for agriculture.

I chose the Mesopotamia and the Nile River Valley. These two civilizations are two of the most favorable ancient civilizations. Although these civilizations are similar in many ways, the small, but impacting differences it what makes these two civilizations stand out the most. The Nile River Valley was located in northern Africa in a country called Egypt. Mesopotamia was located in modern day Iraq, Iran, Syria, Kuwait, and parts of Turkey. The origin of Mesopotamia comes from the meaning “between two rivers.” The land is between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Defining moments for human civilization began within these two.

In ancient Mesopotamia they also had taverns which were their form of what we would call bars. Many people would go to these and they were ran by women. This is shown by the laws that they had considering the taverns and their prices. In it they say that if a tavern keeper rips someone off on a drink then “she,” will be convicted and thrown into the water. They were also considered unholy places since if a “sister of a god,” opened one or even entered on to drink she would be burned. It was also a very popular meeting place much like they are today since conspirators would meet there. Since they didn’t have freedom of speech conspirators would have to be captured by the tavern keeper and turned in. If the tavern keeper would fail to do this

2. The author uses sources that date back to the Stone Age, to gather his information on the use of beer. He outlines how society changed from being hunter-gatherers, and relying on the environment for nutrition, to farmers who were independent of scavenging the environment for nutrition.

Beer started out as gruel, and as the gruel fermented it turned into beer. Now it was not the first form of alcohol, but it was an important kind of alcohol. Beer was made from cereal crops, which were very abundant, and because it was so abundant it could be made whenever it was needed. They then found an even easier way to make beer by using beer-bread. Beer bread is basically everything needed to make beer in a loaf, making it convenient to store the raw beer materials. Beer started as just a social drink but then blossomed into a “hallmark of civilization”, as seen by the Mesopotamians. Grain was the basis of the national diet, it was

1. The discovery of beer is linked to the growth of the first civilizations because in both cultures of Mesopotamia and Egypt, beer was the main drink. It was consumed by everyone and was known as the defining drink of both of the first great civilizations.

1. The discovery of beer is linked to the growth of the first civilizations because the discovery of beer was central to social, religious, and economic life, bringing everyone together which was the setup of most

Beer: Beer was not invented, it was discovered. Exactly when the first beer was brewed is unknown but there was almost certainly no beer before 10,000 BCE. The rise of beer was closely associated with the domestication of the cereal grains rom which it is made and the adoption of farming. Beer originated in the Fertile Crescent in Egypt and Mesopotamia. To beer drinkers in the Neolithic period, beer’s ability to intoxicate and induce a state of altered consciousness seemed magical. This caused them to believe beer was a gift from the Gods. Since it was a gift from the gods, it was presented as a religious offering in religious ceremonies, agricultural fertility rites, and in

Is it strange that cereal grains go from bland to exciting and favorable to use in everyday life by one invention: beer. The cereal grains was turned not boring by adding only two things: water and time. The Egyptians' love for beer faltered since they made at least seventeen types of beer. Neither did the Mesopotamians' excitement, since they made over twenty types of beer. Also in Mesopotamia, they had government storehouses that hold beer-bread named bappir to keep for making beer or to use during food shortages. When people were passionate about something they dwell on it and that is what the Mesopotamians and Egyptians showed. The hype for beer did not end there since it became a symbol of friendship. The most important thing, that beer might have done to the Egyptians, Sumerians, Incas and China was to be used in religious offerings like funerals since it was a gift from gods. In my opinion, beer most been good, since they considered highly to be given to their gods. Then, beer turned socially acceptable after all the Sumerians started making stories about people turning human when eating bread and drinking beer. That is when beer is started to be use in everyday life instead of once a while because beer became a part of their culture. The Mesopotamians invented writing for the purpose of collection and distribution of bread and beer. Which led to inequality because depending on their job, they get a specific amount of beer and bread as payment since it was currency. Beer was important on many levels. It was used for food, religious offerings, stories, and

Beer shows us that early civilizations were encouraged by the cultivation and storage of grain to develop permanent settlements. The history of beer also shows us that ancient civilizations were civilized enough to understand that contaminated water was unsafe to drink. Beer also shows us how the association of beer with a settled down lifestyle was more important to the people rather than the savage ways of prehistoric times. The use of beer as currency demonstrates the prosperity of the new civilizations as well as how beer had become a necessity to the people. The popularization of beer in the ancient world pushed civilization to develop a written language as a way to record the distribution of grain, beer, bread, and other goods.

In Tom Standage’s novel a History in Six Glasses, Standage credits the discovery of beer and wine to the Neolithic Revolution. The Neolithic Revolution allowed humans to abandon their previous nomadic lifestyle they had in the Paleolithic era, and instead to discover how to produce agriculture and raise cattle. Humans were able to establish settlements in fertile areas with predictable climate, like the Fertile Crescent, resulting in farming spreading throughout the region. Rice and wheat became one of the first plants they cultivated, and eventually the production of beer and wine came to be. Beer was discovered when humans began to store and ferment grain. Soon, because of how easy and accessible grain was beer began to dominate the Egyptian

The discovery of beer is helped civilizations grow in many different ways. People discovered a certain type of grain that could be kept edible for many years. It took them a long time to pick and gather this grain. When they gathered this grain in large amounts, the did not want to leave it left alone, just in case someone or something came and stole them. So this led to people settling in an area called the “Fertile Crescent”, where this grain was abundant.

Eventually beer also had other qualities that allowed farming to progress and that is that beer was not harmful to humans as water was (21). Because of this people found out different ways in which they could produce this drink by having different forms of agriculture advancing its form from regular seeds being planted to massive productions, just as did the Greeks and Romans did by using their slave population to farm all of their grapes for the wine in order to drive a successful wine market (71). Farming allowed for populations to grow from small villages to cities to then allow the adoption of beer and wine to become an essential product that drove agriculture to the civilization and growth of people. Along the same lines we can also see how this development of beer due to farming allowed people to become more than just any regular barbaric man, and show that they were people with class.

Beer has a long history. In 2000 B.C.E., Sumerians had prepared eight different beer types, ranging from “strong,” “red brown,” and “good dark” (Mauk, 2013). Breweries have created their own recipes, brewed their own beers—some with alcohol, some without. Over the past few years, craft beer gained steady market share away from the national and international breweries (Murray & O 'Neill, 2012). Separating one beer from the next is the product itself, and what the product has to offer. Competition is ferocious due to more informed, sophisticated consumers, as well as globalization and the spread of technology (Murray & O 'Neill, 2012).