Friday, August 17, 2018

Disease cheese

The tomb of Ptahmes, a 13th century BC mayor of Memphis, Egypt, contains the world's oldest cheese.
A large teracotta jar filled with a white substance rests on its side on some large bricks/stones in the desert amid rubble
University of Catania and Cairo University

It's lucky the archaeologists didn't eat it, as scientists found it was made with sheep or goat mixed with cow's milk that contained traces of Brucellosis.  They found this by chemical analysis, so scientists are all agog to see what DNA sequencing might tell them about the evolution of the bacterium over the years. (It's still a concern in cowherds.)

The rest of us are just happy to make jokes about Sarcophagus Juice pairing well with Egyptian Tomb Disease Cheese.

Edit: More on the cheese (which apparently isn't the world's oldest) here at Buzzfeed, including a very informative answer in the comments.

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