The Tri-Lobed Disc in the Tomb of Sabu and the Basins at the Sun Temple Were for Beer

Abstract

We propose that the Tri-Lobed Disc excavated from the Tomb of Prince Sabu (about 3000 BC, First Dynasty) was used in brewing beer as a mash rake to mix and even out the mixture of grains and hot water in a fairly big mash tun. Two observations which support this idea are presented in Section 1, and why the Disc works efficiently in mashing is explained in Section 2. We also propose in Section 3 our idea about how the Tri-Lobed Disc was made, and actually made its metal model to experiment and observe the flow around the Disc. About a would-be big “royal” mash tun of Prince Sabu is discussed in Section 4, and as a by-product of searching for any remains of ancient Egyptian mash tuns, we uncover in Section 5 that the large basins at the Sun Temple of Nyuserre (about 2400 BC, Fifth Dynasty) were such remains for ritual beer brewing. This reinterpretation succeeds in explaining almost all of their functions.