Editing Shivta (section)

====Agriculture (wine)====
{{main|Gaza wine}}
The wine presses at Shivta give an insight into the scale of wine production at the time.<ref>{{Cite news|date=2012-08-16|title=Deep in the desert|url=https://www.jpost.com/arts-and-culture/food-and-wine/wine-talk-deep-in-the-desert|access-date=5 August 2020|publisher=Adam Montefiore for The [[Jerusalem Post]]}}</ref> According to the calculations of archaeologists, the Nabatean/Byzantine village of Shivta produced about two million liters of wine.<ref>[https://www.jpost.com/magazine/lifestyle/no-sour-grapes "No sour grapes"], Deborah Rubin Fields for The Jerusalem Post, 17 February 2011, partially accessed 5 August 2020 {{subscription required}}</ref>

Adjacent to the site is a large farm that uses Nabatean{{dubious|No, Byzantine. Source is both very poor & old. Look for new source; not considered anymore a Nab. technique, still used in Byz. times.|date=August 2020}} agricultural techniques of irrigation, sowing and reaping.<ref name=Benzaquen>{{Cite news|url=https://www.jpost.com/travel/around-israel/a-hop-skip-and-a-jump-into-the-past|title=A hop, skip and a jump into the past|newspaper=John Benzaquen for The Jerusalem Post, 26 August 2012|access-date=2020-08-05}}</ref>

In the early 6th century, grape production in the Negev for the so-called ''vinum Gazentum'' ('[[Gaza wine]]' in Latin) experienced a major boom due to the high demand for this product throughout Europe and the Middle East.<ref name=volcanoes/> This has been documented by studying ancient trash mounds at Shivta, [[Elusa (Haluza)|Elusa]], and [[Nessana]], which showed a sharp peak in the presence of grape pips and broken "Gaza jars" (a type of amphorae used in this period to export [[Levant]]ine goods from the port of Gaza), following a slower rise during the fourth and fifth centuries.<ref name=volcanoes/> However, mid-century two major calamities struck the Byzantine Empire and large parts of the world: a short period of climate change known as the [[Late Antique Little Ice Age]] (536-545), caused by huge volcanic eruptions in faraway places, which lead to [[Extreme weather events of 535–536|extreme weather events]]; and in the 540s the first outbreak of [[bubonic plague]] in the [[Old World]], known as the [[Justinianic Plague]].<ref name=volcanoes/> Probably as a result of these two events, international trade with luxury goods such as Gaza wine almost grounded to a halt, and in Shivta and other Negev settlements grape production again gave way to subsistence farming, focused on barley and wheat.<ref name=volcanoes/> The previously widely accepted theory that the [[Muslim conquest of the Levant|Muslim conquest]], which came a century later, and the Muslim ban on alcoholic beverages were the cause for the decline of the wine industry in the Negev has been now proven wrong.<ref name=volcanoes/> In nearby Nessana, the number of grape pips is even on the rise again during the Early Islamic period, probably due to the needs of a local Christian monastery.<ref name=volcanoes/> This seems to indicate that the wine industry of the Negev could well be sustained over centuries through appropriate agricultural techniques and in spite of the arid climate, but that the grape [[monoculture]] was economically unsustainable in the long run.<ref name=volcanoes>{{Cite news |url= https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israeli-archaeologists-reveal-secrets-of-ancient-desert-wine-industry-1.9022227 |title= How Volcanoes and Plague Killed the Byzantine Wine Industry in Israel |newspaper= Ariel David for Haaretz, 29 July 2020 |access-date= 2020-08-04}}</ref>