Cyprus is famous for producing several traditional grape-related beverages, such as wine (especially Commandaria) and zivania, as well as desserts, like palouzes and soutzoukos. Given that some of the equipment, recipes, techniques, and processes used to make these products have been handed down for thousands of years, they form an important part of Cyprus’ tangible and intangible heritage. This case study will focus specifically on highlighting Cyprus’ very long history of wine and zivania making by digitizing two items of antiquity related to the storage of wine (Chalcolithic wine jars) and the production of zivania (the zivania alembic) that are currently exhibited at the Cyprus Wine Museum located in the village of Erimi in the Limassol District. The aim is to holistically document these artefacts in order to contribute towards enriching the islands digitally recorded tangible and intangible heritage regarding the making of wine and other grape-related products.
Discovery and Prior Scientific Investigations
In April 2005, on the suspicion that these jars were used to hold wine, experts from both Limassol and Nicosia Archaeological Museums carried out tests by scraping and analyzing the bases of the pottery fragments, which remained unwashed and still kept in their original boxes. Out of 18 bases, twelve bottoms contained large traces of tartaric acid (a naturally occurring acid found in a number of fruits, especially grapes), while the remaining six only contained some traces of the acid. Hence, the research concluded that the Chalcolithic jars were indeed used to intentionally process wine and, furthermore, that the jars with their specific form can be considered the predecessors of amphora-type wine storage vessels in Cyprus. Interestingly, the museum also exhibits other traditional wine storage vessels, like the pitharia jars from the villages of Kornos and Phini. These large terracotta storage jars were usually placed two-thirds of the way underground so that the wine would better maintain a constant temperature.
Zivania is a Cypriot pomace brandy with around 40-50% alcohol content. It is made by distilling a mixture of the solid grape pulp residue from the wine-making process (pressed skins, stalks and pips) and dry wines. The Cyprus Wine Museum exhibition contains an early alembic apparatus that was used for distilling zivania. The apparatus consists of a bronze cauldron in which the grape pulp is boiled, a heavy semispherical lid made of metal and fired clay, a long tube passing through a large clay jar filled with cold water, and a vase for collecting the eau de vie.
The Cyprus Wine Museum expressed interest in digitizing the apparatus as it will help in documenting the traditional process of distilling pomace to obtain zivania that was used many years ago.
MNEMOSYNE’s Research Commitment
The Cyprus Wine Museum is keen on digitally promoting the history of the making, preservation, and consumption of wine on the island. With this in mind, the Cyprus Wine Museum (being exhibitors of one of these Chalcolithic jars) has approached the DCHRLab for the purpose of digitizing the artefact because of the significance it has in establishing Erimi village as (one of) the birthplaces of European wine by positioning the artefact in the evolution of the wine amphora typology and documenting all associated history.
Carrying out the holistic documentation of these two artefacts also gives the opportunity based on the collected evidence at Erimi to form a starting point towards creating a fully documented digital historic timeline of the cultivation of grapes and production of grape-related products in Europe with a 5500-year-old history. This digital timeline could include not only wine, but also other products such as zivania and Commandaria, which holds a protected designation of origin (PDO) within the EU, USA, and Canada, and is only produced in a collection of 14 neighbouring villages in Cyprus. In addition, documentation regarding the areas and landmarks important to the production will also be included. For example, the area now known as Kolossi was the place where Commandaria was first produced taking its name from “La Grande Commanderie” back in 1192 AD. Because of this, Commandaria wine has strong links to the Kolossi Medieval Castle, which is an important monument in the history of the area. Also, Erimi village is at the crossroads of the wine routes of Cyprus, near the prehistoric settlement of Sotira, where the oldest remains of grape seeds have been found. Digitization of all this related knowledge will enrich the heritage of Cyprus as is one of the first wine producing countries. In order to achieve this, the team will undertake a thorough investigation to identify which sites, monuments, manuscripts and other artefacts are closely linked to the production, storage, and consumption of grape-related products on the island to document this tangible and intangible heritage.
There are many different types of users that can benefit from the holistic documentation of the chalcolithic wine jars and the zivania alembic, all of which will have different requirements and reasons for accessing the digitized data. The presentation and preservation of the digitized artefacts will, therefore, be customized in a way which will allow users to access the necessary knowledge. Examples of stakeholders include users in the education sector for presenting the traditions of Cyprus to schoolchildren, as well as tourists who wish to learn about the history of wine follow one of Cyprus’ wine routes. One possible way would be to create a desktop and/or mobile application that allows users to plan their wine route and select visits by interactively viewing information.
Essential Bibliography
- Cyprus Wine Museum, Notes of Kinyras Music, Wine and Perfume since the 4th millennium B.C. and evidence from Erimi, Theopress Ltd: Nicosia, 2009.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zivania
- https://www.visitcyprus.com/index.php/en/discovercyprus/rural/wine-routes
- Papadopoulos, C., Tsapatsoulis, N., Kounoudes, A., & Lanitis, A. (2008). The history of Commandaria: digital journeys back to time. http://ktisis.cut.ac.cy/handle/10488/277
- Theodosiou, Z., Georgiou, O., Tsapatsoulis, N., Kounoudes, A., & Milis, M. (2010, November). Annotation of cultural heritage documents based on XML dictionaries and data clustering. In Euro-Mediterranean Conference (pp. 306-317). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-16873-4_23
