Two subjects which have come up recently, Sumerian (the oldest written language and an isolate) and beer, have got me to thinking about the Hymn to Ninkasi which is a 4000-year-old beer recipe. Googling hymn ninkasi beer yields hits to a 1964 translation of the text by Professor Miguel Civil. The transliterated Sumerian can be found at the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature website (at Oxford) here. (If you mouse over the Sumerian words, you get English glosses.)

quote:

[dug]niĝ₂-dur₂-buru₃-e gu₃ nun di-dam
laḫtan maḫ-a mi-ni-in-si-sa₂-am₃
[d]nin-ka-si [dug]niĝ₂-dur2_-buru₃-e gu₃ nun di-dam
laḫtan maḫ-a mi-ni-in-si-sa₂-am₃
kaš si-im [dug]laḫtan-na de₂-a-zu
[id]₂[id]igna [id2]buranun-na saĝ sig₁₀-ga-am3
[d]nin-ka-si kaš si-im [dug]laḫtan-na de₂-a-zu
[id2]idigna [id2]buranun-na saĝ sig₁₀-ga-am₃

[ll.41ff.]

When you pour out the filtered beer
of the collector vat,
It is [like] the onrush of
Tigris and Euphrates.
Ninkasi, you are the one who pours out the
filtered beer of the collector vat,
It is [like] the onrush of
Tigris and Euphrates.

I couldn't get superscripts to work in UBB code, so I've enclosed the determinatives in square brackets. Each sign in cuneiform is delimited by hyphens or spaces, and the subscripts denote signs that are homonyms.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: zmježd,

I seem to remember seeing on TV a programme where the Head Brewer of one of the "good" breweries (Shepherd Neame? - Richard will know, I'm sure) made a batch of beer to the Sumerian recipe. Apparently it was quite palatable.

I'd not heard of this but I see no reason why the recipe wouldn't work. Making beer is not too complex a task (more difficult than wine, of course) and many early recipes must have been very good. Fuller's 1845 is made from a recipe of 1845 and it is a truly wonderful beer.

Interesting, is it not, that Ninkasi is a lady, and most brewers of beer in the UK were ladies until relatively recently. England's recently disbanded magistrates' sittings, where licenses were granted to Publicans, were always known as the "Brewster Sessions" - not the "Brewer Sessions". But it is wine, which has a male God (Bacchus) that is generally considered the more feminine drink - beer is for men.

a male God (Bacchus)

Bacchus / Dionysus is a rather effete god as classical gods go. (He was also an Eastern import to Greek and Roman mythology; the native Roman god he was identified with was Liber ('free').) In Artistophane's The Frogs much fun is made of Dionysus by Herakles / Hercules. (NB: This comedy was at the official competion in ancient Greece that was presided over by priests of Dionysus.)

Apparently several attempts to recreate Sumerian beer using the Hymn to Ninkasi recipe have been successful. One was by San Francisco's Anchor Brewing Company, well-known even this side of the Pond for their Anchor Steam brew.

There's also an interesting article in The Economist about "Uncorking the Past".

This is a bit off-subject, but I am at a conference where we have someone from France who is giving us a global perspective on our daily discussions. I was talking with him last evening about wine, and I forgot how very arrogant the French are about their wine. Literally, there is no place, besides France, that makes good wine, according to him. The U.S. may have one or two wines, he admitted, but most of them, according to him, only cost about $2. Now, he is ordinarily a wonderful person and not arrogant at all...just arrogant about their wine.

I didn't bring up beer, mainly because I don't know much about their beer. If I remember correctly, Richard doesn't like their beer. I had wished I was more of a beer expert, though, so that I could have brought up that subject.

quote:

I was talking with him last evening about wine, and I forgot how very arrogant the French are about their wine.

The French tend to be very arrogant, full stop.

They do brew some respectable beers but you won't find them in your average French bar. Ask for a "Biere do Garde" and inisist it is one of the bottle-conditioned ones such as Jenlain.

Ask your French contact which sparkling wine won the gold medal in the Premiere Cuveé, Blanc de Blancs at Vinalies Internationales (Paris) in 2003. Details are here http://www.nyetimber-vineyard.com/http://www.nyetimber-vineyard.com/

Of course, as France is the biggest exporter of alcoholic beverages in the world (3 times that of Italy, number 2), they do have some grounds for pride. Here are the top 10 by value in thousands of US dollars:
#1 France 9,198,970
#2 Italy 3,765,340
#3 Spain 2,114,630
#4 Germany 1,986,220
#5 Netherlands 1,924,980
#6 Mexico 1,805,380
#7 Australia 1,627,290
#8 United States 1,357,090
#9 Ireland 1,054,530
#10 Portugal 733,639
SOURCE: International Trade Centre UNCTAD/WTO