2500-year-old honey is confirmed in ancient products –

The sticky residue found in a bronze container found in an underground shrine in Paestum, southern Italy has been identified as honey. A new analytical method found the substance 70 years after it was discovered, contradicting previous analysis and confirming the hypothesis of archaeologists who first excavated the shrine.

Paestum is an important Greek colony, founded in 600 BC, located in the Tyrrhenian Sea Coast near Salerno. It is famous for its history of the three great Doric temples (dedicated to Hera, Athens and Neptune), which dates from 550 to 450 BC and is in good condition, in a better condition than many of the brethren on the Greek continent.

The ship was discovered in 1954 among the heroes near the Temple of Athena. The shrine dates back to 520 BC and consists of tumors within the rectangular wall facing the large stone. The excavation of Tumulus discovered a sloped limestone roof on the underground chamber. In the chamber there are eight bronze containers – six Hydrae (water jugs) and two amphibians – beautifully decorated handles and a black figure Amphora made in Athens. The pots are arranged around an empty iron bed, representing the existence of the gods, or more likely the founder of the city that died a century before the construction of the shrine.

A residue of thick paste-like substance was found in the blood vessels, with traces on the outside of it indicating that it was originally liquid. At that time, the substance had a waxy smell, which archaeologists believed was a sacrifice of honeycombs, a symbol of immortality in Greek mythology, and only beeswax could survive. However, this contradicts scientific testing. Three different laboratory analyses were performed on different samples of the substance – a few years after the excavation, the second test, the second was in 1970, and the third was honey. Sugar has never been found; the residue is not dissolved and water, and its fatty acids indicate that it contains animal and/or plant fat.

In 2019, a piece of bronze hydrogen and a large piece of residue was borrowed from the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford University. The museum is able to use a combination of spectroscopy, high resolution chromatography and mass spectrometry to conduct new research on the composition of residues.

They found:

• The chemical fingerprints of the ancient residue are nearly identical to modern beeswax and modern honey, with higher acidity levels, which is consistent with changes after long-term storage.
• The chemical composition of the residue is more complex than that of cooled beeswax, indicating the presence of honey or other substances.
• The residue touched the bronze jar and the degraded sugar was found to be mixed with copper.
• Hexose sugars detected in ancient residues than modern beeswax are a common group of sugars found in honey.
• Royal jelly protein (known to be secreted by western bees) was also found in the residue.

These results show that ancient matter is the remaining of ancient honey. However, researchers cannot rule out the possibility that other bee products may also exist.

“Ancient remnants are not only traces of what people eat or provide to the gods – they are complex chemical ecosystems.” [research team leader Luciana] Da Costa Carvalho. “Studying them reveals how these substances change over time, opening the door to future work on ancient microbial activities and their possible applications.”

The results of scientific analysis are already here Journal of the American Chemical Society You can read it here.