The Oldest Cheese Ever Was Found on This 3,500 Mummy's Chest
Would you dare eat this cheese? According to a recent discovery from an ancient Chinese tomb, archaeologists uncovered perfectly preserved mummies whose chests were sprinkled with 3,500 year old aged cheese.
This is by far the oldest cheese. How did it not decay? USA Today explains:
First documented by a Swedish archaeologist in the 1930s, it sits in the fearsome Taklamakan Desert, one of the world's largest. A mysterious Bronze Age people buried dozens of their own atop a large sand dune near a now-dry river, interring their kin underneath what looks like large wooden boats. The boats were wrapped so snugly with cowhide that it's as if they'd been "vacuum-packed," Shevchenko says.
The combination of dry desert air and salty soil prevented decay to an extraordinary degree.
The discovery sheds light on the ancient cheese making technologies. The cheese had been made using a mix of bacteria and yeast. The combination of dry desert air and salty soil prevented decay to an extraordinary degree.
