Archaeologists discovered a man’s cremated bones in the world’s oldest bottle of wine, which was found in a Roman tomb in Spain.
The 2,000-year-old glass urn was originally unearthed five years ago in Carmona, a city in Andalusia.
Researchers announced earlier this year they had found liquid inside the urn, which tests showed was wine.
The wine has been dated to the fourth century, making it one of the oldest vintages ever to be discovered.
“At first we were very surprised that liquid was preserved in one of the urns,” Carmona’s municipal archaeologist Juan Manuel Román said.
But the surprises did not stop there. Archaeologists were amazed to find a man’s cremated bones in the wine, along with a gold ring.
The discovery has helped shed more light on funerary rituals in the Spanish region during the Roman period.
Researchers said that it was “no coincidence” that the skeletal remains were those of a man and not a woman.
They explained that the ancient Romans prohibited women from drinking wine, which was considered to be a “man’s drink”.
The urn’s ash content reflected Roman society’s gender divisions in funerary rituals.
A woman’s remains were found in another urn from the tomb, which had no traces of wine at all.
The urn was found to contain three amber jewels, a bottle of perfume, with a patchouli scent, and the remains of silk fabrics.
The artefacts placed in the tomb were done so according to a Roman belief that the dead would need them on their voyage to the afterlife.
It is generally believed that there were five stages to a Roman funeral, although there are no direct descriptions of the ritual.
The five parts consisted of a procession, cremation and burial, eulogy, feast, and commemoration.
The Romans believed it was very important to conduct the proper ceremonies and burial to avoid having a malicious spirit rising from the underworld.
