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Friday Quiz - the answers
Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2003 11:26 am
by Quizmasters Apprentice
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?
Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2003 11:34 am
by PaulV
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
Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2003 11:43 am
by Quizmasters Apprentice
Nope, not the Celts. My research is that they were too busy drinking it and had none to transport
Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2003 12:05 pm
by Anthony
was back in the florintine era in italy?
Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2003 12:15 pm
by Popov
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
Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2003 12:34 pm
by Quizmasters Apprentice
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.
Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2003 12:38 pm
by graham
The Greeks?
Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2003 12:50 pm
by Quizmasters Apprentice
No, the Greeks were too busy shipping amphorae around the place.
Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2003 12:57 pm
by Guest
Twas the Romans...
Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2003 12:59 pm
by MrStinky
Correction the Gaul's methinks
Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2003 1:05 pm
by Quizmasters Apprentice
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?
Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2003 1:10 pm
by MrStinky
Around 1AD or thereabouts?
Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2003 1:15 pm
by Irregular
or perhaps c 100BC - 10BC, it was such a long time ago, my memory is fading
Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2003 1:23 pm
by Quizmasters Apprentice
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.
Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2003 9:13 pm
by Guest
Now we have a new answer to "What have the Romans ever done for us?"
Kieran
Posted: Sat Nov 01, 2003 6:30 am
by PLCB
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
Posted: Sat Nov 01, 2003 3:37 pm
by Quizmasters Apprentice
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.