Egyptian Beer names

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Brewing in ancient Egypt  is a fascinating topic, but a tedious one to study.  Given the earliest evidence for Egyptian brewing dates around 3500 BC and continues through the Ptolemaic period some 3,000 years later,  that amount of time must have led to changes in brewing techniques, ingredients, and better technology. But there is not a whole lot out there. There is no evidence to suggest the Egyptians stopped brewing, but it probably tailed off in popularity once the Greeks stepped in.  The Greeks did impose a beer tax in Egypt for the first time, after all.  

Anyway, the Egyptian word for beer was hqt (heqet), and the names Egyptians gave to their types of hqt were pretty cool. Some early sources from the Pyramid Texts - religious texts from Old Kingdom era Egypt - call out a few beers. These are: dark beer, iron beer, hes-beer (garnished), and the beer of Nubia. 

A few beers that are particularly interesting are the beer of truth, beer which does not sour, and beer of eternity.  The beer of truth, also called the beer of the goddess Maat, was designated for the 12 gods who guarded the shrine of Osiris. These latter two beers are assumed to have an extended shelf life, given their names.  How old school Egyptian brewers were able to do so, I have no idea.  It is some feat to get a beer to preserve given that the Egyptians (seemingly) had no means to protect their beer from microbial attack.  Maybe they had plants with the same preservative powers as hops, or maybe they upped alcohol content by adding dates...but who knows.