Researchers discover 2,500-year-old honey residue in ancient bronze jars

Fox News

2 days ago

Researchers recently made a sticky discovery.
They found 2,500-year-old honey, sealed in a vessel and buried underground for nearly three millennia.
The residue was found in bronze jars at an underground shrine in Paestum, an ancient Greek settlement in modern-day Campania, Italy. The artifacts date back to the 6th century B.C.
The jars were first found by archaeologists in 1954, but the residue in them has eluded experts – until now.
In a study published by the American Chemical Society on July 30, experts concluded that the waxy residue was once honey.
Luciana Carvalho, a research associate at the University of Oxford, told Fox News Digital the substance bears little resemblance to the golden honey in most modern-day cupboards.
"Ancient honey was quite different from the clear, smooth honey we buy today," she noted.
"There was no ultra‑filtration, no pasteurization and no synthetic pesticides in the landscape."
The chemical results "strongly" suggested that the jars held raw honeycomb, rather than a blended product like most modern honey.
"If honey had been mixed with milk, for example, we would expect to see extra fatty acids in the residue – and we don't," she said.
But the raw honeycomb has dramatically changed over the millennia.
Along with fellow researchers Elisabete Pires and James McCullagh, Carvalho found that the sugar gradually became dark and acidic.
"After 2,500 years, almost all the original sugars have broken down [and been] eaten by microbes, so the residue isn't sweet anymore."
"[The] sugars slowly reacted with proteins in a kind of slow-motion browning process, similar to what happens when bread bakes, turning it darker and more acidic," she said.
Because of that, the remaining residue isn't exactly pleasant to eat, according to the expert.
"What survives now is a waxy residue with a slight tang and virtually no sweetness," Carvalho noted.
"After 2,500 years, almost all the original sugars have broken down [and been] eaten by microbes, so the residue isn't sweet anymore."
As for the vessels, Carvalho said the bronze jars have cork discs that seal their necks, which points to "careful storage of something valuable."
The copper-alloy jugs were found in a sealed, underground shrine, suggesting that they were left there as part of a ritual.
"Inside, the residue clung to the bottoms and sides, exactly what you'd expect if raw honeycomb had been placed inside and slowly dried out over centuries," she said.
"We hope our approach will be used to identify honey residues in other museum collections so we can learn more about ancient beekeeping and the role of honey in diet, medicine and ritual life."
Researchers in the 1980s previously believed that the honey was a mixture of wax, fat and resin, with Carvalho noting that past research was limited by less precise tools.
"Those methods were great for detecting fats and waxes but couldn't easily pick up sugars or proteins without extra chemical steps," she said.
"In our study we used multiple modern techniques designed to detect different types of molecules, including sugars and proteins, even if these are present at trace levels, with instruments far more sensitive than anything available in the 1980s."
She also noted that the discovery had strong collaboration from multiple groups, including museum curators, conservators and specialized scientists.
"We hope our approach will now be used to identify honey residues in other museum collections so we can learn more about ancient beekeeping and the role of honey in diet, medicine and ritual life," Carvalho said.
The latest research adds to a number of ancient food-related discoveries this year, which are extremely rare occurrences.
In Guam, 3,500-year-old rice was recently found, making it the earliest known evidence of rice in Remote Oceania.
Earlier in 2025, archaeologists uncovered a well-preserved loaf of ancient bread in Turkey, dating back to the Bronze Age.