Weird History The Oldest Foods Ever Discovered By Archaeologists, Ranked By How Terrible They Would Be To Eat
List Rules Vote up the grossest rediscovered foods.
Archaeologists often make gruesome, significant, and fascinating discoveries, but some of their finds are downright repulsive – sometimes they unearth ancient foods. These foods date back thousands of years, making them actual archaeological discoveries, and most of them sound pretty disgusting.
Archaeologists find food all the time, whether it's hiding in ancient tombs, resting on the bottom of the sea in a sunken ship, or tied around the neck of a mummy. These ancient food discoveries range from the palatable – such as preserved honey found in Egyptian pyramids – to the completely revolting – 5,000-year-old butter pulled out of a bog – to the culturally significant – 4,000-year-old preserved noodles discovered at Lajia site, also known as China's Pompeii.
Take a look through the oldest foods archaeologists have discovered, and contemplate facing these choices at a sadistic buffet. What would be the absolutely worst food to eat today?
2,400-Year-Old Soup, Green From Oxidation
Some of the best archaeological food discoveries come from tombs, where people were buried with provisions for the afterlife. Archaeologists working in China found a surprising food haul in one tomb, where they uncovered a bronze cooking pot. When they opened the pot, they found 2,400-year-old bone soup. Because of oxidization, the soup turned green, but it was still in liquid form, and the bones were still floating on top.
Bog Butter
One Irish butter farmer from 3,000 years ago buried his cache of butter in a bog – and then forgot about it. The oldest example of bog butter dates back 5,000 years, and nearly 300 different chunks of bog butter have been dragged from the peat.
Many are baffled as to why farmers would throw their butter into a bog. Butter was a valuable commodity – some people even used it to pay taxes. As such, hiding butter in a bog was the ancient equivalent of hiding money in a mattress. Ireland even considers bog butter to be a national treasure.
1,700-Year-Old Bottle Of Roman Tomb Wine
The oldest unopened bottle of wine is almost 1,700 years old and comes from a Roman tomb near Speyer, Germany. The bottle was discovered during the excavation of a Roman nobleman’s tomb that dates between 325 and 359 CE. Following its discovery, the unopened bottle was placed in the Historical Museum of the Palatinate in Speyer.
The ancient wine bottle survived the fall of Rome, the rise of the Holy Roman Empire, and several major wars, all while remaining intact. A combination of olive oil poured in the bottle and a thick wax seal preserved the contents. As for the wine’s taste, wine professor Monika Christmann warns, “it would not bring joy to the palate.”
Ancient Chinese Mummy Cheese
A group of archaeologists uncovered 200 mummies buried in China’s Taklamakan Desert. The mummies are nearly 4,000 years old, and they are still wearing the clothes in which they were buried in upside-down boats.
The mummies were also carrying chunks of cheese tied around their necks. The dry and salty soil of the desert preserved the mummies and their ancient cheese for thousands of years.
