The findings from a wine jar dated to 5100 B.C. provide concrete evidence of ancient Egyptian organic medicine, which had only been ambiguously referred to in later papyrus documents, said Patrick McGovern of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, one of the researchers. Tests on one of 700 jars buried with Scorpion I in his tomb at Abydos about 3100 B.C. confirmed that the vessel contained wine, according to the paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

More presses are likely to be found in the area, which was probably an ancient wine-industry hub, according to Tarek El-Naggar, director for southern Sinai at Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. Weeks after discovering the first wine press, excavators unearthed a nearly identical press with limestone walls, about 340 feet (100 meters) away