Herodotus Describes Egyptian Barley Beer

Around 440 BCE, the Greek historian Herodotus described Egyptian dietary customs in Book Two of his Histories. He wrote that Egyptians regularly consumed a drink made from barley, using the Greek language of wine to explain a fermented grain beverage to his readers. The passage provides a prominent classical description of Egyptian beer from an outside observer. Herodotus explained the custom by claiming that Egypt had no vines, but archaeological and textual evidence shows that Egyptians also cultivated grapes and produced wine. His account should therefore not be treated as a complete description of Egyptian drinking culture. It nevertheless demonstrates that barley beer remained sufficiently characteristic of Egypt in the fifth century BCE to attract the attention of a Greek historian.