Scientists discover world’s oldest wine containing man’s ashes

(WJW) – Scientists in Spain have discovered the world’s oldest wine, a 2,000-year-old white wine that contains a man’s ashes.

According to researchers at the University of Córdoba who published their discovery on Tuesday in the Journal of Archaeological Science, the wine was found inside a funeral urn in an ancient tomb in Carmona, a southwestern town in Spain.

According to the report, the Roman tomb was originally discovered in 2019 and had a person named Hispana, Senicio, and four others, two men and two women whose names are unknown. 

According to the researchers, as part of a ritual at that time, “the skeletal remains of one of the men were submerged in a liquid inside a glass funerary urn. This liquid, which over time has acquired a reddish tone, has been preserved since the 1st century AD. C.”

Juan Manuel Románm, the municipal archaeologist of the Carmona City Council, led a team from the Department of Organic Chemistry of the University of Córdoba to this discovery and identified it as the oldest wine discovered to date, replacing the Speyer wine bottle that was discovered in 1867 and dated to the 4th century AD.

“At first we were very surprised that liquid was preserved in one of the funerary urns,” Románm said in the report. 

According to the researchers, the condition of the tomb was preserved and sealed well, which helped the wine maintain its natural state.

“The fact that wine covered the skeletal remains of a man is no coincidence,” the report said. “Women in ancient Rome were long prohibited from tasting wine. It was a man thing.”

For more details and facts about the 2,000-year-old wine discovered in Spain, click here.