ABSTRACT
The evidence for fish sauce consumption preserved in Egyptian papyri has proved invaluable in illuminating its use throughout the ancient world as there is such a conformity in terms of the terminology, uses and practices that are associated with it. We learn that it took time for fish sauce to become embedded in ancient Egyptian life, but once accepted it became as popular there as in other regions of the empire. We learn that the color of the finished sauce plays a hugely important role in identifying the various forms of sauce, and that the blood/viscera garum proper was (at least in Egypt and Greece) sold in modest amounts and in small or very small vials and bottles.
