@inbook{c3579ed7b048404b93198792238e6d80,
title = "Isolation and Characterization of Live Yeast Cells from a Mead Vessel",
abstract = "In this paper we present the results of the isolation and characterization of yeast samples from mead storage jars excavated from the Ramat Raḥel Babylonian-Persian Pit.1 We identified the yeast by sequence analysis as Hyphopichia burtonii—a yeast that is also found in the contemporary yet traditional beverage, tej, an Ethiopian mead. We grew it in wort similar to the modern beer yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae and produced a potable and tasty mead and beer.Based on the hypothesis that yeast has the potential to survive for long periods of time within the nano-pores of clay vessels, we tested the possibility of isolating live yeast from vessels that had previously contained fermented liquids. We were successful in isolating and characterizing two strains of yeast from vessels excavated from the pit. We extracted the first strain from a typical Early Persian period Judean storage jar (Table 11.1:1; Figs. 4.17:2, 4.18:2, 4.19:7). According to previous organic residue analyses (Chapter 10), such vessels contained mead (honey wine; Lipschits et al. 2017: 107−108). We isolated the second strain from an oil lamp found in the same context (Table 11.1:38; Fig. 4.10:5).Our interest in this project was part of our broader research into finding a new method to isolate live microorganisms from ancient vessels (Aouizerat et al. 2019)",
author = "Tzemach Aouizerat and Itai Gutman and Yuval Gadot and Daniel Gelman and Amir Szitenberg and Elyashiv Drori and Ania Pinkus and Miriam Schoemann and Rachel Kaplan and Shunit Coppenhagen-Glazer and Oded Lipschits and Michael Klutstein and Ronen Hazan",
year = "2021",
doi = "10.1515/9781646021789-013",
language = "American English",
series = "Monograph Series of the Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology",
publisher = "Penn State University Press",
pages = "131--141",
booktitle = "Ramat Raḥel VI",
address = "United States",
}