In 2019, a family discovered an ancient Roman burial site in southern Spain while renovating their home. Inside the tomb, they found a glass funeral urn containing liquid with a reddish hue. Researchers were surprised to find that the urn contained wine after conducting tests.
The team from the Department of Organic Chemistry at the University of Cordoba conducted the study and found that the wine remained untouched for about 2,000 years inside a mausoleum in Carmona, Andalusia. Juan Manuel Román, the municipal archaeologist of Carmona, explained that the team was shocked to find liquid preserved in one of the funerary urns. The tomb’s exceptional conservation conditions sealed for two millennia allowed the wine to remain in its natural state.
The findings of this study have broken the previous record held by Speyer wine dating back to the fourth century AD and discovered in 1867. The Speyer wine is currently preserved at the Historical Museum of Pfalz in Germany. This discovery has opened up new possibilities for further research into ancient wines and their production methods.
