Remains of a feast:
The riches in bronze in the king’s tomb were matched by a wealth of organic residues left in the drinking vessels. Excavators—realizing the importance of using scientific methods to disentangle history from legend—shipped all the residues to the Penn Museum, where a Museum chemist examined them. The results were largely negative—at the time, highly sensitive analytical instruments weren’t available. The chemist could show only that carbon, nitrogen, and other elements characteristic of organic materials were present.
40 years later, Dr. Patrick McGovern and his research team took up up the project of identifying specific organic compounds in the drinking vessels.
The team was able to reconstruct the Midas Tomb funerary feast in minute detail using such methods as infrared spectroscopy, liquid and gas chromatography, and mass spectrometry. (Enough of the original samples remain for the future when even more advanced methods will be available).
The various chemical results complemented one another and gave an extremely consistent picture of what was drunk on that momentous occasion 2700 years ago. Altogether, analyses were carried out on 16 residues from a range of bronze vessel types: the ram-headed and lion-headed “buckets” or situlae, a small vat used in serving, 9 small drinking bowls with omphalos or “belly-button” bases, and 4 large drinking bowls.
Results? The beverage in all the vessels was determined to be a mixture of grape wine, barley beer, and honey mead. McGovern’s analyses focused on identifying “fingerprint” compounds for specific natural products. In the case of grape wine, tartaric acid or its potassium or calcium salts were detected in all the residues from the drinking-set vessels that were analyzed. This acid occurs in large amounts in nature only in grapes.
Barley beer was marked by the presence of calcium oxalate, or “beerstone,” which settles out at the bottom and along the sides of beer fermentation and drinking vessels. A single vessel often served the same purpose in the ancient Near East, so it was difficult to eliminate this bitter-tasting substance from the brew. Although calcium oxalate is widespread in nature, high levels, like those detected in the Midas Tomb drinking vessels, are unusual. Since these vessels most likely held a liquid, barley beer is the best candidate (sprouted barley or “malt,” an important ingredient of beer, has also been recovered from the palace area). The jugs with long, sieved spouts would have been especially well suited to filter out any spent grains or other debris from the brewing process.
Finally, the fermented beverage concoction was rounded off with honey mead. The long-chained, saturated carbon compounds of beeswax, which can be preserved for centuries, provided the tell-tale evidence, together with gluconic acid. It is impossible to filter out all the beeswax when processing honey, so honey products always retain a small amount of the substance
Served at the Banquet:
If a mixed fermented beverage had been served at the king’s funeral, was there also an entrée, or at least hor d’oeuvres, to go with it?
Eighteen pottery jars had been placed inside the large vats. These jars—handleless dinoi and small “amphoras”—each contained as much as 150 grams (about a third of a pound) of a spongiform and brownish material, quite unlike the shiny, dark residues found inside the bronze drinking vessels. The jars were also surrounded by large clumps of a similar-looking material.
The infrared results from one sample to the next were like carbon copies of one another, and quite different from those of the beverage residues. Additional testing led to the identification of specific fatty acids and lipids characteristic of sheep or goat fat. The presence of intact triglycerides (which are stored as a prime energy source in fat globules of animal tissue) attested to the extraordinary preservation conditions inside the tomb.
A variety of other ingredients were also detected in these residues. Phenanthrene and cresol implied that the meat was first barbecued before it was cut off the bone. Honey, wine, and olive oil, which may have been used to marinate the meat, were respectively represented by gluconic, tartaric, and oleic/elaidic acids. Besides large amounts of cholesterol, which would be expected in a meat dish, a high-protein pulse—most likely lentils—was present. Indeed, large stocks of lentils and cereals were found in storage jars in the kitchens of buildings across the street from what is almost certainly Midas’s palace on the Gordion citadel.
The finishing touches to this stew were provided by herbs and spices. Whether or not the ancient Phrygians imported real pepper from the Indian subcontinent this early is unknown. Dr. Naomi F. Miller, a paleobotanist and member of the Gordion team, reports that pulses of some domesticated and wild legumes that grow around Gordion today have a very bitter taste. They may have been used as flavoring agents.
Chemical findings reveal that the main entrée at the funerary feast of King Midas was most likely a spicy lentil and barbecued sheep or goat stew. Although some components of the stew were prepared separately and might have entered in at different stages of the ceremony, the uniform chemical composition of the contents of eight pottery vessels and four clumps that were analyzed strongly suggests that the ingredients were cooked together to make a stew; otherwise, one must imagine the leftovers being divided up and distributed equally to each vessel. The absence of bones, olive pits, or other seeds and grains also fits best with a well-prepared stew, now attested in the cult center of 13th century BC Mycenae, Greece, as well as other Bronze Age sites on Crete.
The extraordinary drinking set, which was used to serve the accompanying mixed fermented beverage of wine, beer, and mead, has an importance that extends well beyond Midas and his funerary feast. Later Greeks would have turned up their noses at such a concoction, but Homer also describes a drink that combines wine, barley meal, honey, and goat’s cheese (Iliad 11:628-643; Odyssey 10.229-243). Recent chemical analyses by McGovern’s laboratory of numerous Late Mycenaean and Minoan drinking vessels have also shown that they were filled with the same mixed fermented beverage as that in the Midas Tomb.
How could two seemingly disparate cultures—Late Bronze Greece (ca. 1400-1200 BC) and Iron Age Phrygia—share the same taste in beverages? The answer may lie farther north in Europe, where a mixed fermented beverage was being enjoyed at least 4000 years earlier than the time of the Vikings, with whom mead-drinking is most closely associated. Grapes grew less well in cold northern climes, but honey was abundant there, and other fruits (especially apples and cranberries) were available to produce what may be called today a punch or toddy. Scholars have long argued that the Mycenaean Greeks were European invaders. The Phrygians are also believed to be of European extraction via the Balkans and northern Greece. Thus, the predilections of the two peoples for mixed fermented beverages might well be explained by their common European origins. As grape vines proliferated and winemaking improved, varietal wines from particular regions became a mark of “civilized” life and “barbaric” beer and mead were pushed to the sidelines. Yet, mead remained a speciality of the Phrygians until at least the 1st century of our era.
As a result of a remarkable archaeological discovery and the advent of modern scientific tools, we have been able to put later accounts of King Midas to the test. Of course, many of these tales have long been understood to be highly fanciful. The decomposed body of King Midas, lying in state in his coffin, might be viewed as the just reward for his over-indulgence. Yet, he lived to the ripe old age of 60 or 65, far exceeding the average life expectancy of the time (although those who survived into adulthood sometimes lived to be very old). Contrary to legend, he does not appear to have starved as a result of a putative “golden touch” or to have poisoned himself. If his funerary feast reflects what he ate and drank in life, Midas benefited from a high-protein diet and the enhanced antioxidant and nutritional content of a fermented beverage.