Friday Quiz - the answers

Quizmasters Apprentice · Fri Oct 31, 2003 11:26 am

Friday Quiz Time,

Wine used to be transported around the place in clay containers (amphoras). At some stage this was changed to use barrels instead.

When did this happen, and who was responsible?

PaulV · Post by **PaulV** » Fri Oct 31, 2003 11:34 am

How's this

", it is generally accepted that it was the iron age communities of Northern Europe, notably the Celts, who developed the wooden barrel for large transport of goods, including wine."

Cheers

paul V

Quizmasters Apprentice · Fri Oct 31, 2003 11:43 am

Nope, not the Celts. My research is that they were too busy drinking it and had none to transport

Anthony · Post by **Anthony** » Fri Oct 31, 2003 12:05 pm

was back in the florintine era in italy?

Popov · Post by **Popov** » Fri Oct 31, 2003 12:15 pm

I'm going with Paul on this one!
My research says:
"The old Romans took the wooden barrels made out of fir from the native celts".
Cheers
Popov

Quizmasters Apprentice · Fri Oct 31, 2003 12:34 pm

Anthony, no, not Florentine and again, not the Celts.

Popov, read the question again, it isn't 'who developed the barrel' it is when did the shipping of wine change from amphoras to barrels, and who did it.

In a corollary, wine barrels where overwhelmingly used to transport wine until the 20th century, until glass bottles began to be used widely, even though glass bottles had been around for a while before then.

graham · Post by **graham** » Fri Oct 31, 2003 12:38 pm

The Greeks? :twisted:

Quizmasters Apprentice · Fri Oct 31, 2003 12:50 pm

No, the Greeks were too busy shipping amphorae around the place.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Oct 31, 2003 12:57 pm

Twas the Romans...

MrStinky · Post by **MrStinky** » Fri Oct 31, 2003 12:59 pm

Correction the Gaul's methinks

Quizmasters Apprentice · Fri Oct 31, 2003 1:05 pm

Yes

It was the Romans; Popov in effect gave the answer away when he said

The old Romans took the wooden barrels made out of fir from the native celts".

The Romans took the barrels and started using them to ship wine.

Now, When?

MrStinky · Post by **MrStinky** » Fri Oct 31, 2003 1:10 pm

Around 1AD or thereabouts?

Irregular · Post by **Irregular** » Fri Oct 31, 2003 1:15 pm

or perhaps c 100BC - 10BC, it was such a long time ago, my memory is fading

Quizmasters Apprentice · Fri Oct 31, 2003 1:23 pm

You did mean the first century AD don't you?

In which case, correct.

The source is "A Short History of Wine" by Rod Phillips.

To quote, which starts part way through a paragraph of the Romans in Britain.

The Romans pushed viticulture as far as Britain, where the climatic conditions were far from ideal for growing wine grapes. There appears to have been a vigorous but short-lived English wine industry thaht include the manufacture of amphoras.

The growth of these provincial wine did nothing to help the trade in Italian wine which went into decline from the first century AD.

At this time there was a shift in technology as amphoras ... were replaced by other containers. Roman exporters began to ship wine in wooden barrels... Quite why amphoras were abandoned is not clear, but one result is that evidence of the wine trade is much more difficult to find. Amphoras survive thousands of years of burial underground or at seas, but wooden barrels rot at disintegrate without trace.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Oct 31, 2003 9:13 pm

Now we have a new answer to "What have the Romans ever done for us?"

Kieran

PLCB · Post by **PLCB** » Sat Nov 01, 2003 6:30 am

You know, all I could think of when reading this quiz was the old Asterix comics...I was sure you were going to quote that as your source, QMA ! ;-)

Cheers, Celia

Quizmasters Apprentice · Sat Nov 01, 2003 3:37 pm

I'd like to PLCB, however the only comics I get to look at are the ones under Quizmaster's bed, and while they do deal with Vikings (and also Gladiators), Asterix isn't one of them.