Diodorus Siculus wrote, "And the discovery of the vine, they say, was made by Osiris and that, having further devised the proper treatment of its fruit, he was the first to drink wine and taught mankind at large the culture of the vine and the use of wine, as well as the way to harvest the grape and to store the wine." (1.15)
Osiris was called "Lord of Drunkeness at the Wag-festival", which took place during the season of the grape harvest, shortly before the inundation. (Sigfrid Hoedel-Hoenes, Life and Death in Ancient Egypt, pg. 114) And wine was frequently offered to him, for instance, in the stela of Thutmose the doorkeeper, from the 18th Dynasty, we find that "water, a cool breeze and wine" are to be given to "the spirit of the inundation" and Horemheb offers Osiris wine in order to be granted the "gift of life, each day, like Ra". Vines could be depicted in funerary monuments associated with Osiris, the most famous example belonging to the 18th Dynasty Mayor of Thebes Sennefer, whose tomb was known for its stunningly beautiful depiction of a grape arbor as the "tombeau des vignes". The ceiling of his tomb is covered in vines and grapes painted with utmost care, reaching down into the shrine of Osiris within the burial chamber, as if originating from the realm of the God of life and vegetation.
Wine offers a clear connection between Crete, the earliest home of Dionysos, and Egypt, as Carl Kerenyi observes, "The Minoan hieroglyph for wine, an ideogram in Linear B, is similar to the Egyptian hieroglyph of the same meaning. It recalls that form of grape arbor which is represented on a picture of the wine harvest at the time of the Eighteenth Dynasty." (Dionysos: Archetype of Indestructable Life, pg. 56)
Wine is so intimately linked with Dionysos that scarcely anyone speaks of the God without mentioning it. It shares his nature, for like the God it is "fiery" (Euripides Alkestis 757), "wild" (Aeschylus Persians 614), and "madness-inspiring" (Plato Laws 7.773 d), and yet it brings "great joy to mankind" (Homer Iliad 14.325). Perhaps the best description of the powers of wine are to be found in a hymn of the Roman poet Horace, "You move with soft compulsion the mind that is so often dull; you restore hope to hearts distressed, give strength and horns to the poor man. Filled with you he trembles not at the trunculence of kings or the soldiers' weapons." (3.21) Like the God, it is not complete without a second birth, and suffers immeasurably before it attains its final form. Achilles Tatius called wine "the blood of the God" (The Adventures of Leucippe and Clitophon 2.2) and Nonnos compared it to the tears of the God. (7.367) Wine was said to spring up miraculously whenever the God approached (Homeric Hymn 7) and the female followers of Dionysos caused "the earth to flow with milk, with wine, with the nectar of bees," (Euripides' Bacchae 708). Wine was poured out in libations to the Gods, drunk at symposia, and used by intiates to attain a mystical union with Dionysos. Euripides equated Dionysos with wine itself, saying, "As a God Dionysos himself is poured out to the Gods." (Bacchae, 284)
Copyright 2005 Sannion
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