What is a "Prohibition Device?"

This is just one mystery out of the following article:

From xinuanet.com

China's earliest wine unearthed in NW tomb

English.news.cn 2012-07-06 00:36:11 XI'AN, July 5 (Xinhua) -- Liquid inside an ancient wine vessel unearthed in Shaanxi province is considered to be the earliest wine in China's history, archaeologists told Xinhua Thursday. The wine vessel made of bronze was unearthed in a noble's tomb of the West Zhou Dynasty (1046 BC - 771 BC) in Shigushan Mountain in Baoji city. The liquid is likely the oldest wine discovered in China, said Liu Jun, director of Baoji Archaeology Institute, who is in charge of the project. The vessel, one of the six discovered in the tomb, could be heard to contain a liquid when it was shaken, Liu said. However, the cover of the vessel was pretty solid and there was no appropriate tools to open it at the excavation site, so the liquid remains a mystery, he said. During the Shang Dynasty (1600BC-1046BC), the dynasty before the Zhou Dynasty, wine became a symbol of corruption as Shang officials used to drink excessively, he said. The people of Zhou made "prohibition devices" to put on the table to remind people to drink in moderation, he said. A 95-centimeter-long and 21-centimeter-tall "prohibition device" was unearthed with the wine vessels on June 25 in the same tomb, which is the first of this kind unearthed in Baoji, he said. Many other bronze devices with inscriptions were unearthed on Thursday. The excavation work is still underway at the site and more bronze devices are expected to be discovered in the next couple of days. Editor: Mu Xuequan ****************************************************************************

A photograph of one of these "prohibition devices" would be useful, don't you think?  Geez!  What were they - gags made out of metal?  Come to think of it, we could use some of those in Washington, D.C.

The other mystery is why is the "oldest wine in China" only about 3000 years old?  Surely wine was being fermented long before the Shang Dynasty!  I believe wine was already already being made in the Middle East around 10,000 years ago -- I have a recollection of reading several articles many years ago that talked about the domestication and deliberate cultivation of grapes in the Lake Van region as early as 9000 BCE, and it didn't take long for the vines to make their way down the mountains in Armenia into the plains of the Middle East. 

Does the article actually mean to say that the wine discovered in the tomb was the first actual wine still in liquid form discovered?  That, in and of itself, is actually quite amazing, when you think about it!

Confirmed Evidence of Oldest Yet Evidence of Wine Making

Very interesting.  The article is long so I will not put it here entirely, only some excerpts:

From UCLA
Chemical analysis confirms discovery of oldest wine-making equipment ever found
UCLA scientists use new scientific method to verify vintage 4100 B.C. wine
By Meg Sullivan January 10, 2011 Category: Research

Analysis by a UCLA-led team of scientists has confirmed the discovery of the oldest complete wine production facility ever found, including grape seeds, withered grape vines, remains of pressed grapes, a rudimentary wine press, a clay vat apparently used for fermentation, wine-soaked potsherds, and even a cup and drinking bowl.

The facility, which dates back to roughly 4100 B.C. — 1,000 years before the earliest comparable find — was unearthed by a team of archaeologists from Armenia, the United States and Ireland in the same mysterious Armenian cave complex where an ancient leather shoe was found, a discovery that was announced last summer.

Cave outside Armenian village

The discovery in 2007 of what appeared to be ancient grape seeds inspired the team to begin excavating Areni-1, a cave complex located in a canyon where the Little Caucasus mountains approach the northern end of the Zagros mountain range, near Armenia's southern border with Iran. The cave is outside a tiny Armenian village still known for its wine-making activities.

Radiocarbon analysis by researchers at UC Irvine and Oxford University has dated the installation and associated artifacts to between 4100 B.C. and 4000 B.C., or the Late Chalcolithic Period, also known as the Copper Age in recognition of the technological advances that paved the way for metal to replace stone tools.

Archaeologists found one shallow basin made of pressed clay measuring about 3 feet by 3-and-a-half feet. Surrounded by a thick rim that would have contained juices, and positioned so as to drain into the deep vat, the basin appears to have served as a wine press. Similarly structured wine-pressing devices were in use as recently as the 19th century throughout the Mediterranean and the Caucasus, Areshian said. No evidence was found of an apparatus to smash the grapes against the wine press, but the absence does not trouble the archaeologists.

"People obviously were stomping the grapes with their feet, just the way it was done all over the Mediterranean and the way it was originally done in California," Areshian said.

All around and on top of the wine press archaeologists found handfuls of grape seeds, remains of pressed grapes and grape must, and dozens of desiccated vines. After examining the seeds, paleobotanists from three separate institutions determined the species to be Vitis vinifera vinifera, the domesticated variety of grape still used to make wine.

The team also unearthed one cylindrical cup made of some kind of animal horn and one complete drinking bowl of clay, as well as many bowl fragments.

The closest comparable collection of remains was found in the late 1980s by German archaeologists in the tomb of the ancient Egyptian king Scorpion I, the researchers said. Dating to around 3150 B.C., that find consisted of grape seeds, grape skins, dried pulp and imported ceramic jars covered inside with a yellow residue chemically consistent with wine.

After the Areni-1 discovery, the next earliest example of an actual wine press is two and a half millennia younger: Two plaster basins that appear to have been used to press grapes between 1650 B.C. and 1550 B.C. were excavated in what is now Israel's West Bank in 1963.

Over the years, archaeologists have claimed to find evidence of wine dating as far back as 6000 B.C.–5500 B.C. And references to the art and craft of wringing an inebriant from grapes appear in all kinds of ancient settings. After Noah's Ark landed on Mount Ararat, for instance, the Bible says he planted a vineyard, harvested grapes, produced wine and got drunk. Ancient Egyptian murals depict details of wine-making. Whatever form it takes, early evidence of wine production provides a window into a key transition in human development, scientists say.

"Deliberate fermentation of carbohydrates into alcohol has been suggested as a possible factor that prompted the domestication of wild plants and the development of ceramic technology," said Barnard, who teaches in the UCLA Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures.

Ahem (cough cough) - please notice the location of Areni on the map.  It is in the region anciently known as Urartu and the land of the "mountains of Ararat" as referred to in the Bible. You will be familiar with the old fable (so we're told) from the Bible about Noah's ark landing "on the mountains of Ararat" and he, his family, and the animals he saved on the ark with him disembarked.  As the article goes on to explain, Noah planted a vineyard, in due time made some wine, and got drunk.  After living through an experience like the great flood, hell yes I'd get drunk, too! 

Perhaps continued investigations in the area will uncover even older evidence of wine production.  As I understand it, evidence of "agriculture" - that is, evidence of use of domesticated crops, dates back about 9,000 years ago (to c. 7,000 BCE) and not too far away from those "mountains of Ararat."  Hmmm....  just saying.