| Carmona Wine Urn | |
| Material: | glass, lead casing, sherry wine, cremains |
| Created: | 1st century AD |
| Discovered: | Carmona, Spain |
| Culture: | Roman Empire |
The Carmona Wine Urn is a first century Roman glass urn containing intact wine. Discovered in 2019 in Carmona, Spain during excavations of the city's western Roman necropolis, analysis of the urn's contents five years after has deemed the vessel as the oldest surviving wine in the world, surpassing the previous record older, the Speyer wine bottle (discovered in 1867) by three centuries.[1] [2]
Carmona, once known as Carmo, was part of the province of Hispania Baetica. In the first century, agriculturalist Columella wrote of the production of white wine in the locality, as well as that of olive oil, and wheat.[3] [4]
In 2019, house renovations held at 53 Sevilla Street revealed an access shaft that yielded an un-looted family mausoleum, measuring 3.29 m x 1.73 m x 2.41 m; in the chamber, there were eight niches, with two individuals named Hispanae and Senicio.[5] In what is designated Niche 8 was a glass vessel, an olla ossuaria, lined in a lead case. The vessel contained five liters of wine, mixed together with the cremains of the deceased, and with it, a gold ring at the bottom.
Analysis of the wine contents indicates methods of preservation of the wine, to which in Hispania Baetica, powdered gypsum is used to keep wine fresh, in addition to salt.Analysis of many wine residue derives from biomarkers and sediment of remains in vessels, as the Speyer wine bottle, with its contents intact has remained sealed since its discovery thanks to its wax seal, yet it is determined that olive oil was used to stabilize the wine.[6]
Based upon the elemental salt composition of the Carmona vessel, a high concentration of elemental Potassium was measured at 3.28 g/L, indicative of the cremains that ended up in the wine, with additional concentrations of silicon, sodium, and aluminium noted after two millennia of contact.[7]
Analysis of polyphenols in the wine identified Quercetin, 4-Hydroxybenzoic acid, Apigenin, Vanillin, Isoquercetin, Naringin, Rutin, which then localized the wine production site to Doña Mencía. A lack of Syringic acid narrowed the type of wine to White wine, specifically sherry from Jerez de la Frontera and Condado de Huelva.[8]