3,000-Year-Old Liquor Was Found Inside A Tomb From The Shang Dynasty
In 2010, a bronze, owl-shaped vessel was unearthed within a Chinese tomb at the Daxinzhuang Ruins in Jinan, Shandong province.
The vessel contained a clear liquid dating back over 3,000 years. After 15 years of study and preservation, it was finally identified as distilled liquor in 2024.
It is the earliest known example of its kind in the history of China. The discovery has pushed back liquor production in China by more than 1,000 years.
The vessel dates back to the late Shang Dynasty (1600 B.C. to 1046 B.C.), a period known for its contributions to writing and metallurgy.
The artifact was located in Tomb M257 and was in relatively good condition. It was just one of a few owl vessels ever found in the Shandong province.
At the time of its discovery, archaeologists noted that it held a small amount of liquid but were unable to open it completely because the lid was corroded.
When the vessel was buried all those years ago, it was tightly sealed and not fully oxidized. Over time, a thick layer of rust had formed between the two pieces, gluing them together.
The process of unsealing the vessel without causing damage took nearly 15 years. Once researchers opened the lid and revealed the contents of the container, they sent a sample of the liquid to the International Joint Laboratory of Environmental and Social Archaeology Research at Shandong University.
An analysis confirmed the presence of water, ethanol, ethyl acetate, and other substances related to distillation. There were no sugar proteins or organic acids that are usually found in fermented fruit and rice wine, so the researchers concluded that the liquid was distilled liquor, the oldest ever to be uncovered in China.
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“Fruit wine and rice wine made by fermentation without distillation contain sugar and proteins in addition to ethanol. However, the liquid found this time does not contain sugar or proteins, which confirms that it is a distilled liquor,” said Wu Meng, the lead author of the study and an associate researcher at the Shandong laboratory.
The finding suggests that the production of distilled liquor in China began much earlier than previously believed.
The Shang Dynasty is often regarded as the beginning of traditional Chinese history due to the many archaeological treasures and ancient writings that trace back to this era.
Chinese writing originated from this dynasty alongside objects made of bronze, stone, and jade. The Shang Dynasty was not known for the production of distilled liquor.
Wine-making dates as far back as the Neolithic period (7000 B.C.E. to 1700 B.C.E.), but distilled liquor did not appear until about 2,000 years ago.
It is thought that distilled spirits were brought to China via trade and created domestically during the Han Dynasty (202 B.C.E. to 220 C.E.).
The recent finding pushes back the timeline of distilled liquor in China by at least a millennium and offers new insights into the history of alcohol production.
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