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Fossil vines 60-million-years-old, are the earliest scientific evidence of grapes. The earliest written account of viniculture is in the Old Testament of the Bible which tells us that Noah planted a vineyard and made wine. As cultivated fermentable crops, honey and grain are older than grapes, although neither mead nor beer has had anywhere near the social impact of wine over recorded time. Wine and history have greatly influenced one another.

MIDDLE EASTERN ORIGINS
An ancient Persian fable credits a lady of the court with the discovery of wine. This Princess, having lost favor with the King, attempted to poison herself by eating some table grapes that had spoiled in a jar. She became intoxicated and giddy and fell asleep. When she awoke, she found the stresses that had made her life intolerable had dispersed. Returning to the source of her relief, her subsequent conduct changed so remarkably that she regained the King's favor. He shared his daughter's discovery with his court and ...

Certainly wine, as a natural phase of grape spoilage, was "discovered" by accident and is not an invention of man. It is established that grape cultivation and wine drinking had started by about 4000 BC and possibly as early as 6000 BC. The first developments were around the Caspian Sea and in Mesopotamia, near present-day Iran. Texts from tombs in ancient Egypt prove that wine was in use there around 2700 to 2500 BC. Priests and royalty were using wine, while beer was drunk by the workers. The Egyptians developed the first arbors and pruning methods. Archeological excavations have uncovered many sites with sunken jars, so the effects of temperature on stored wine were probably known.

My Passion for Arts .

The world's earliest report of a dramatic production comes from the banks of the Nile. It is in the form of a stone tablet preserved in a German museum and contains the sketchy description of one, I-kher-nefert (or Ikhernofret), a representative of the Egyptian king, of the parts he played in a performance of the world's first recorded "Passion" Play somewhere around the year 2000 B.C. This Egyptian Passion bears a notable resemblance to the Passion Plays of the twentieth century. Its purpose is obviously the same as that of the one at Ober-Ammergau, or the Tyrolean, or the Persian Passion Play of Hussein . . . the principal object, as always, being to keep vivid in the minds of the faithful the sufferings and triumph of a god.

In the case of the Egyptian "Passion" the central figure was the legendary king-divinity, Osiris. According to the historical legend, Osiris ruled wisely. He was treacherously murdered and his body was cut in pieces and scattered. His wife, Isis, and his son, avenged his murder, gathered up the pieces of his body for pilgrimage relics, won back his throne and established the cult of Osiris-worship. We know that Passion plays in his memory were performed annually at Abydos, Busiris, Heliopolis, and elsewhere.

The acting of those days must certainly have been quite as realistic as that of any modern stage, for later Greek historians tell us that many actor-warriors died of the wounds received in the "sham" battles between the enemies of Osiris and the forces led by his son, Ap-uat. The play closes with the resurrection of Osiris as a god and the foreshadowing to all the faithful of their own final resurrection.

Cidade Velha Cabo Verde

The city was founded as Ribeira Grande (Portuguese for large valley) by António da Noli as the first settlement in Cape Verde in 1462. Cidade Velha was also the first European settlement in the tropics. Settlers were enlisted by the island and Madeira. In 1466, Cidade Velha received monopoly on slavery and became important. Slaves from Guinea-Bissau and from Sierra Leone were shipped from Cidade Velha to Brazil and the Caribbean. The large valley served as a prison.

In 1533 it was made the seat of the Roman Catholic West African diocese and it became a city in 1572. In 1585 and 1586, Sir Francis Drake twice attacked the city. In the 17th century, Ribeira Grande was important in carrying supplies from the port. The Portuguese slavery in 1712 was terminated by the Frenchman Jacques Cassart which he plundered and destroyed the city, leading to the relocation of the capital to Praia.