Mead of the Bell Beaker Culture (c. 2800–1800 BCE). The earliest surviving description of mead is in the hymns of the "Rigveda", one of the sacred books of the historical Vedic religion and (later) Hinduism dated around 1700–1100 BC. During the Golden Age of ancient Greece, mead was said to be the preferred drink. Aristotle (384–322 BCE) discussed mead in his "Meteorologica" and elsewhere, while Pliny the Elder (23–79 CE) called mead "militites" in his "Naturalis Historia" and differentiated wine sweetened with honey or "honey-wine" from mead. The Hispanic-Roman naturalist Columella gave a recipe for mead in "De re rustica", about
Mead 60 CE. There is a poem attributed to the Brythonic-speaking bard Taliesin, who lived around 550 CE, called the "" or "Song of Mead". The legendary drinking, feasting and boasting of warriors in the mead hall is echoed in the mead hall "Din Eidyn" (modern day Edinburgh) as depicted in the poem "Y Gododdin", attributed to the poet Aneirin who would have been a contemporary of Taliesin. In the Old English epic poem "Beowulf", the Danish warriors drank mead. In both Insular Celtic and Germanic cultures mead was the primary heroic drink in poetry. Later, taxation and regulations governing the