Israeli archaeologists discover ancient winemaking complex:
Israeli archaeologists on Monday said they have unearthed a massive ancient winemaking complex dating back some 1,500 years.
The complex, discovered in the central town of Yavne, includes five wine presses, warehouses, kilns for producing clay storage vessels and tens of thousands of fragments and jars, they said.
Israel's Antiquities Authority said the discovery shows that Yavne was a wine-making powerhouse during the Byzantine period. Researchers estimate the facility could produce some 2 million liters (over 520,000 gallons) of wine a year.
Jon Seligman, one of the directors of the excavation, said the wine made in the area was known as "Gaza" wine and exported across the region.
[...] Seligman said wine was not just an important export and source of enjoyment in ancient times. "Beyond that, this was a major source of nutrition and this was a safe drink because the water was often contaminated, so they could drink wine safely," he said.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 12 2021, @03:16AM (2 children)
Suck my Asshole, you faggotfucks. Nobody likes you!
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 12 2021, @07:25AM
Too bad you aren't MtF, being a dickless cunt would really save you money on medical bills.
(Score: 2, Funny) by ilPapa on Tuesday October 12 2021, @12:34PM
I see you've already started your 2024 campaign.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 12 2021, @04:35AM
Now they're gonna bomb Palestine to preemptively protect the alcohol?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 12 2021, @05:16AM
it would be an aristarchus WHINE-making complex! Ha!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Username on Tuesday October 12 2021, @08:07AM (1 child)
Or, more specifically, in the Roman province of Palaestina, one makes wine and debates the arguments of whether or not christ was a human who held the holy spirit or was a divine existence unto himself. The beginning of the great schism.
PS: You only get to debate this for about 250? more years until a caliphate forces you to convert to islam, then there is no debate.
(Score: 3, Funny) by driverless on Tuesday October 12 2021, @10:08AM
That also helps to date the complex, it wouldn't have been around in Jesus' time, they'd just bottle up some water and it'd become wine later. Damn unfair competition!
(Score: 4, Funny) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday October 12 2021, @11:13AM (4 children)
The wino's pretense for centuries. Now that we have access to safe drinking water, I feel a bit exposed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 12 2021, @01:06PM (3 children)
What I don't get is that wine (any booze, really) DEHYDRATES you. You pee more and lose net water.
I understand that in some cultures (ancient Greeks), you were supposed to dilute the wine with water before drinking. Obviously, many would still have drunk it undiluted. But even diluted wine would be a diuretic, right?
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday October 12 2021, @02:19PM
The idea is to get enough alcohol in your water, so you don't get some nasty parasite/etc. Not enough water in your alcohol to make it not dehydrate you.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 12 2021, @03:26PM
It's likely your mistake is you stop drinking... ;)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 13 2021, @07:43PM
It's more complicated than that.
But dumbing things down a bit, it depends on how strong your booze is. If your boozohol quotient is somewhere around the budlite for liteweights level, the net effect is to hydrate you. Seriously, it's not quite a sports drink, and it tastes like cheap generic mineral water, and will leave you able to function on a basic level after you consume a gallon of it, but dehydration from ethanol really isn't the major problem, partly because so much is going to be flowing through you anyhow. If on the other hand your definition of gettin' your buzz on starts with tekillya, dehydration rears its ugly head. It's not just about diuretic effects, but also how the alcohol itself is metabolised, and how that interferes with antidiuretic hormone activity. As a bonus, another consideration is that it's not just concentration, but also net quantity because the actual concentration in your body determines exactly how your body is going to handle it. A big pint of strong porter nursed over an hour or more isn't going to affect an average-sized man on any gross level, while the same man chugging it down in under a minute and then demanding another is on the flowing river to drunkytown, because his rate of intake is boosting the level in his body much faster. Dosage measurements are fun! Take biochemistry!
Another consideration is that old school wine makers didn't have modern yeasts. Yeasts, yes, they absolutely had (although they had no idea, because microscopic analysis had to wait a few centuries), but they didn't have high quality, purpose-bred yeasts. They basically had the vintner's equivalent of sourdough starter. They didn't have distillation (that came later, too) and so their wines probably topped out in the region of maybe 10% ABV, if they were lucky (OK, maybe one hit the yeasty jackpot and had phenomenally strong juice one year and hit 16% - possible, but a wild outlier). Most wine in that time was ready to rock you, but not nearly as dehydrating in net terms as your wine mom's ruby port she drinks to dull the disgust with her children, house, neighbourhood and the sweat-smelling, stubbly pawings of her blob of her husband while she calculates what she could take him for in a divorce. (This doesn't apply to the elegant girls still looking for the man in their lives while they sip 6%ABV Chardonnay-based wine coolers.)
(Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Tuesday October 12 2021, @03:29PM
... "safely" drinking wine for years.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!