A bronze jug unearthed from a civilian tomb collection in China’s Shaanxi Province has been found with wine from that period sealed inside. The bottle is believed to have been buried sometime between the late Warring States period (475-221 BCE) and the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BCE). The wine would have been an offering for the dead.
Excavators were surprised to find about 10 ounces of rice wine still intact in the bottle. Zhang Yanglizheng, an assistant researcher at the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology (SPIA), which is studying the wine, said the milky-white liquid “possess alcoholic substances such hydroxyproline and glutamate,” suggesting that it “possesses similar qualities and features to modern-day fermented wine,” GB Times reports.
The discovery also “reflects the level of wine making in Qin’s capital Xianyang,” a prefecture in what is now Shaanxi Province, GB Times added. Smithsonian Magazine posted a translated video about the ancient alcohol.
