Thriving wine trade in Islamic Sicily revealed by the chemistry of its pottery

Scientists at the University of York have found chemical evidence of the trade in wine in Sicily from the ninth until the 11th centuries, when the Mediterranean island had Islamic rulers who were forbidden by their religion to drink alcohol. They say their method to tell if ancient pottery containers held wine or other grape products can be used on artefacts from almost any time and place, and could help researchers chart the use of wine over thousands of years. Although the use of wine in Islamic Sicily is attested by historical evidence, ‘we have established this very robust criterion with chemistry, and you can apply this to earlier periods where we have no idea if wine was produced’, says Léa Drieu, who carried out the analysis.¹