Ancient Greek Ships Carried More Than Just Wine

Nature ^ | Friday, October 14, 2011 | Jo Marchant

[SunkenCiv]

A DNA analysis of ancient storage jars suggests that Greek sailors traded a wide range of foods -- not just wine, as many historians have assumed. The study, in press at the Journal of Archaeological Science1, finds evidence in nine jars taken from Mediterranean shipwrecks of vegetables, herbs and nuts. The researchers say DNA testing of underwater artefacts from different time periods could help to reveal how such complex markets developed across the Mediterranean.

Archaeologist Brendan Foley of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts and geneticist Maria Hansson of Lund University, Sweden, retrieved DNA from nine amphorae -- the storage containers of the ancient world -- from sunken ships dating from the fifth to the third centuries BC.

The researchers found grape DNA -- as would be expected for containers of wine -- in only five of the nine jars, and olive DNA, possibly from olive oil, in six of them. Other 'hits' included DNA from legumes, ginger, walnut and juniper and from herbs such as mint, thyme and oregano.

Amphorae have been found in their thousands in wrecks all over the Mediterranean Sea. Some of them contain residues of food, such as olive pits and fish bones, but the vast majority of them are discovered empty and unmarked.

Foley says historians tend to assume that these containers were used mainly to transport wine -- in a survey of 27 peer-reviewed studies describing 5,860 amphorae, he found that 95% of the jars were described as having carried the beverage.

[SunkenCiv]

;”) I’ve heard that too — wait, that was me that said it... :’)

[SunkenCiv]

;’)

[SunkenCiv]

The brand marks of one of the family-run brands of it have been found on jar fragments alll over the former Empire. :’)