According to expert research, people have begun to manufacture liquor as early as the Xia Shang era. Since the advent of wine, many literati and inkers have a fondness for it. Cao Cao used it as a means of dispelling his sorrows and wrote the poem "How to relieve worries, only Du Kang"; Li Bai regarded him as a source of creative inspiration and left behind the legend of "a hundred poems of fighting wine". It is precisely out of the love of wine that some literati and dignitaries will also bring wine into the tomb as a funerary product after their death.
So, what exactly does this wine taste like that has been preserved in the tomb for thousands of years? An archaeologist revealed the answer to us through his own experience. On May 4, 1974, Shenyang's FakuYe Maotai Village was very lively, because a thousand-year-old Liao tomb was discovered in the local area, and the excavation was presided over by Feng Yongqian, a famous archaeologist who had a unique study of the history of Liaojin and Khitan Jurchens. When the main burial chamber was opened, in addition to the gold and silverware, Feng Yongqian also found two white porcelain injection pots under the wooden table in the southeast corner of the tomb.
He swept it with his hand and found that one of the pieces weighed much heavier than the normal injection pot, and with a gentle shake, there was a crisp liquid sound inside. With years of archaeological experience, Feng Yongqian concluded that it was wine. At this time, the other experts also gathered around and carefully observed the pot. The mouth and flow of the pot are stuffed with something like a cork and sealed with wax on the outside. Because after thousands of years, the "cork" has decayed, the material cannot be distinguished, and the sealing wax on the outside of the "cork" has also taken on a dark yellow color.
The experts realized that the mouth of the pot must be sealed immediately and the liquid inside the pot must be tested in time. However, Yemaotai Village is far from Shenyang, and if it is transferred, the components in the liquid are most likely to be exerted on the way. In order to record the situation that can be grasped at the first time, some people suggest that you simply taste it with your mouth first to see if the liquid in the pot is wine, and this suggestion has been approved by everyone. So Feng Yongqian poured a little liquid from the pot and put it in the glass, took a sip gently, and tasted it carefully.
The others saw the situation and asked him what it tasted like. Feng Yongqian said 5 words lightly: "A bit earthy." Later, after professional instrumentation testing, the unknown liquid in the pot contained a small amount of ethanol, which concluded that the liquid in the pot was indeed a thousand-year-old wine. In our impression, the wine is often aged, but this pot of thousand-year-old wine is only "a little earthy." Isn't this no different from boiling water? Is it any wonder that the ancients drank a few pounds and a few pounds at every turn, and now it seems that there is really no difficulty? Who can't drink a few bottles of mineral water!