Working in an ancient winery was seasonal, smelly and noisy

Shouting, squelching, singing, constantly moving, ancient urban wineries were an assault on the senses

Have you ever wondered what the ancient world was like on a sensory level?

What smells did people encounter as they walked down the street? How did lamp light play around a bedroom? Were someone’s eyes drawn to a particular scene in a fresco? What would it have been like to pray inside a temple? Research into the sensory experience of antiquity is becoming increasingly popular and is being explored from a variety of experimental and theoretical angles.

Ancient agricultural production lends itself particularly well to this approach. I recently worked on the first comprehensive Mediterranean-wide analysis of urban Greek and Roman wine and oil production with fellow researcher Dimitri Van Limbergen. As part of this, we explored the sensory experience of ancient wine production.

Seasonality

Wine production in Greek and Roman antiquity was entwined with the seasons, just as it is today. During the vintage season (the period of the grape harvest and winemaking), production areas experienced a flurry of increased activity as work intensified and more labourers were involved. These facilities are likely to have become focal points at regular times of the religious calendar (for example, the vinalia rustica, an ancient religious festival held on August 19 to celebrate the opening of the grape harvest and vintage).

But ancient wineries were only used for a relatively short period of the year: immediately after the harvest in summer and possibly following fermentation while opening the clay storage jars in spring.

Rather than lying silent and unused for extended periods, research suggests these facilities might have been multi-purpose. They may have been used in the off-season to process other crops, such as nuts and dates, with the stone rollers or crushers found in some wineries of the eastern Mediterranean, like those in North Syria.

Analysis of organic residue dating back to the Bronze Age Aegean of the second millennium BC indicates that some wineries on Crete were used for perfume, olive oil production, washing clothes or processing wool. Indeed, at Pompeii, a fresco surviving from the Fullonica of L. Veranius Hypsaeus, a public ancient Roman laundromat, depicts a screw press used to press washed garments, identical to the same piece of equipment used to press grapes.

Soundscapes

Just as the use of wineries evolved and shifted through the annual cycle, so too could their soundscape. People trod grapes tirelessly in vats, with liquids and soft fruits squelching underfoot. Workers shouted, sang and chanted to rhythmic music accompanied by different types of instruments to ease fatigue.

Numerous artistic sources depict the aulos (a type of flute) being played during winemaking in reliefs, mosaics and painted on ceramics. The poet and historian Agathias Scholasticus in the sixth century AD mentions using the aulos in vineyards. Whereas the author Longus, writing perhaps in the second century AD and famed for the work Daphnis and Chloe, mentions the syrinx, a type of pan-flute familiar to peasants.

Homer’s Iliad, a thousand years earlier, describes how a lyre-like stringed instrument is played as boys and girls carry bunches of grapes during the harvest.

Numerous other ancient texts provide examples of “presser songs” – specific pieces to be played during vinicultural activities.

This symphony of sounds permeated wineries and fields during the vintage, filling green spaces – urban and rural – with music, singing and shouting as workers laboured to gather and process grapes, carrying or carting them with musical accompaniment. On some estates, however, what might seem like an idyllic soundscape was almost certainly penetrated by sounds of enslavement and cruel labour.

Smellscapes

Alongside seasonal and aural aspects was the smell of wine production. Crushing and pressing grapes produces intense odours. Add to this the sweat of workers undertaking arduous physical activity — treading for hours, winding unwieldy screw or winch-driven presses, or moving heavy stones.

Across the ancient Mediterranean, a huge array of flavours could be added to wine, perhaps some during production: herbs such as rosemary or thyme, spices including cinnamon or pepper, honey and saltwater. Pitch, manufactured from natural tree resin, was used not only as an additive and flavourant but also to waterproof ceramic storage dolia in cellars and amphorae for wine transport.

This spectrum of scents – foul, pleasant, and everything between – along with sights and sounds, permeated and surrounded ancient wineries, generating a sensory landscape like no other.

Emlyn Dodd receives funding from the British Academy, University of London, and British School at Rome. He is affiliated with the University of London, Macquarie University, British School at Rome, and the Australian Archaeological Institute at Athens.