Abstract

Armenia has a long and significant history of grape cultivation and wine production, such that 8th century BCE Urartian kings referred to it as “the land of vineyards”. Likewise, Assyrian armies marvelled at the vast quantities of wine and chose to take wine as tribute rather than precious metals. The most notable ‘stains’ that grapes and wine made on ancient economies and societies occurred in three distinct periods: 1) the Chalcolithic/Early Bronze Age, specifically at the site of Areni-1; 2) the Iron Age Urartian wine economy and 3) the Medieval Period (Christian wineries). However, the archaeological evidence of wine production from the Urartians period (9th-6th centuries BCE ) has mainly been textual (primarily Urartians and Assyrians) and ceramic based (i.e. karases), with minimal evidence of the technology of grape processing and winemaking (i.e. archaeobotanical data in association with specific wine production equipment). To help fill this gap in the archaeological record, the (minimal) chronology of wine production equipment in Armenia will be explored, along with contemporary production equipment from surrounding areas (eastern Mediterranean and the Levant). The ethnography of production equipment will be used as a heuristic tool to explore the possible locations for wine production and what types of production equipment were utilized to create such a significant wine industry during the Urartian Period.