Ancient Egypt and the incredible cultivation of the vine in the Nile valley.

: December 14 2021

It is known that agriculture had one of the most important cradles in ancient Egypt and already in the fifth millennium the Egyptian fellahin cultivated in the fertile valley irrigated by the "father Nile" most of the cereals,

vegetables and fruit that still flow on our tables today (the other great assortment of products of the earth came to us later, after the discovery of America, thanks to the inventiveness and work of another great agriculture: the Andean one) since Egypt was practically part of that very civil and fertile slice of land called the "fertile crescent".
Artificial hills in the Nile valley.
The Egyptian vineyard couldn't find its chosen land in the Nile plains. The underlying reason will be clarified later by the great Roman peasant poet, Virgil, who, in a nice concise verse of his Georgics will explain that Bacchus amat colles, that is, the vine prefers the hills. There are no heights in Egypt and the Egyptian peasants built them, with patience, accumulating land in rows, carried on the shoulders one after the other, step by step, with the patience and the spirit of sacrifice that characterizes the people of the Earth. Of course, ancient Egyptians couldn't build many homemade hills, to get those sunny slopes that grapes require. In fact, in the land of the Pharaohs, viticulture on artificial hills always remained a rare activity and a product of which there was to be jealous. The precious wine was not a drink for everyone. The Egyptians' juicy red wine was intended only for the powerful and the rich: the Pharaohs in the first place and then the dignitaries, officials, officers, scribes, courtiers. For others? Palm wine, which is a type of beer brewed with dates since ancient times, because the laws of fermentation held no secrets for the Egyptians. At the time of the great power of the empire, Egypt was inhabited by two million people. It was certainly not a populous territory, however, for those times, it could be considered a densely inhabited country, given that the absolute majority of the population lived along the course of the Nile. So there couldn't be wine to drink for everyone. The hieroglyphic documents, which the indefatigable scribes wrote on the walls to inform posterity, make it clear that the average Egyptian had a rather sober diet table: three or four loaves a day and two pitchers of beer. The noble wine was therefore scarce in Egypt, although the highly honored vineyard was cultivated since the pre-dynastic period: the fourth or fifth millennium before the birth of Christ.