• Oriental Institute (map)
  • 1155 E. 58th Street
  • Chicago, IL 60637

We’re excited to collaborate with our partners, the Oriental Institute of Chicago and the Art Institute of Chicago, to bring you a 3 week course that takes a deeper look at drinking in antiquity.

Explore the origins and intersecting histories of beer and wine around the ancient Mediterranean World and Near East. This class examines the archaeological, art historical, and literary evidence from the great civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome. We reconstruct the technical processes for brewing and winemaking and explore the cultural contexts for beer and wine among different social classes in antiquity. Aspects of ancient drinking culture are explored through the lenses of feasting, religious worship, funerary practice, medicine, and everyday life. We consider the evidence on various social mores surrounding alcohol consumption and intoxication and how these customs manifest in ancient legends, mythology, magic, and religion.

This course is led by Lucas Livingston, staff at the Art Institute of Chicago and National Advisory Board Member of the Chicago Brewseum.


This program is part of the Beer History + Culture Project, a two-year national collaboration dedicated to highlighting, preserving, and celebrating beer history and culture and building national support for the Chicago Brewseum.

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