The Hymn to Ninkasi: An Ancient Sumerian Text About Brewing

Lock, Stock, and History

The Hymn to Ninkasi brings together two things that may seem far apart: religious praise and the practical work of brewing beer. Preserved on clay tablets from the eighteenth century B.C., the Sumerian text addresses a goddess through the actions of preparing grain, handling vessels and pouring a finished drink.

Beer was already an established product when it appeared in third-millennium B.C. cuneiform records. Its place in Mesopotamian life extended from ordinary meals to ritual and medicinal preparations. The same drink could accompany a meal, form part of an offering or become an ingredient in a preparation, linking the brewer’s work with several parts of society.

The larger idea that brewing helped drive the development of settled civilisation has attracted considerable interest. Even the suggestion that people first cultivated barley for beer rather than bread has been debated. The surviving hymn offers something more specific than an answer to which came first: a literary glimpse of the work and cultural importance of brewing. Historical discussion of Sumerian beer Background: beer and early civilisation Related research: ancient beer and antibiotics

Ninkasi personified beer and its production in Sumerian tradition. The hymn names Enki as her father and Ninti as her mother, placing the craft within a divine family. Its praise also gives dignity to skilled work: the goddess handles dough, tends malt and manages the vessels through which the drink passes.

The text is often celebrated as an exceptionally early beer recipe. It is also a poem, with repetition and imagery that a modern recipe would not need. Its significance lies in that combination: a familiar human activity expressed through the language of worship.

Miguel Civil, a University of Chicago Sumerologist, published an edition of the drinking songs in 1964. In his 1991 account, he described the surviving tablet versions and the difficulties earlier translators had faced with specialised brewing language. Fritz Maytag, then president of San Francisco’s Anchor Brewing Company, later worked from the text to recreate the beer. The experiment brought a brewer’s practical understanding to a scholar’s interpretation of ancient words. Civil reported that brewers tasted the reconstruction from large jugs through straws, following the ancient drinking practice. He gave its alcohol concentration as 3.5 percent and described a dry, non-bitter result resembling hard apple cider. These are observations about the modern experiment, giving a sense of what that particular reconstruction produced.

The recreated drink did not keep well. Civil connected that limitation with beer intended for prompt consumption and with the absence of hops from the Mesopotamian brewing tradition he described. The project’s value was in making and tasting a plausible interpretation of the process.

For Civil, the collaboration also offered a practical check on his translation. A brewer could recognise connections between operations that might remain obscure when approached only as vocabulary. Working across those two kinds of expertise made the experiment more than a novelty drink. The first part of the hymn appears below. A companion drinking song turns its attention to brewing and serving vessels, shared enjoyment and tavern toasts. Both appear in Civil’s illustrated article, with the continuation on page four. The shift from preparation to celebration gives the drink a social setting as well as a method of production.

Hymn to Ninkasi (Part I)
Borne of the flowing water,
Tenderly cared for by the Ninhursag,
Borne of the flowing water,
Tenderly cared for by the Ninhursag,

Having founded your town by the sacred lake,
She finished its great walls for you,
Ninkasi, having founded your town by the sacred lake,
She finished its walls for you,

Your father is Enki, Lord Nidimmud,
Your mother is Ninti, the queen of the sacred lake.
Ninkasi, your father is Enki, Lord Nidimmud,
Your mother is Ninti, the queen of the sacred lake.

You are the one who handles the dough [and] with a big shovel,
Mixing in a pit, the bappir with sweet aromatics,
Ninkasi, you are the one who handles the dough [and] with a big shovel,
Mixing in a pit, the bappir with [date] - honey,

You are the one who bakes the bappir in the big oven,
Puts in order the piles of hulled grains,
Ninkasi, you are the one who bakes the bappir in the big oven,
Puts in order the piles of hulled grains,

You are the one who waters the malt set on the ground,
The noble dogs keep away even the potentates,
Ninkasi, you are the one who waters the malt set on the ground,
The noble dogs keep away even the potentates,

You are the one who soaks the malt in a jar,
The waves rise, the waves fall.
Ninkasi, you are the one who soaks the malt in a jar,
The waves rise, the waves fall.

You are the one who spreads the cooked mash on large reed mats,
Coolness overcomes,
Ninkasi, you are the one who spreads the cooked mash on large reed mats,
Coolness overcomes,

You are the one who holds with both hands the great sweet wort,
Brewing [it] with honey [and] wine
(You the sweet wort to the vessel)
Ninkasi, (...)(You the sweet wort to the vessel)

The filtering vat, which makes a pleasant sound,
You place appropriately on a large collector vat.
Ninkasi, the filtering vat, which makes a pleasant sound,
You place appropriately on a large collector vat.

When you pour out the filtered beer of the collector vat,
It is [like] the onrush of Tigris and Euphrates.
Ninkasi, you are the one who pours out the filtered beer of the collector vat,
It is [like] the onrush of Tigris and Euphrates.

Reference: Open Culture