Ancient Greeks Offered the Gods a Sticky 'Superfood'

A decades-old archaeological mystery has finally been cracked: A strange sticky residue found in 2,500-year-old bronze jars unearthed in southern Italy is now confirmed to be ancient honeycomb. Researchers had long suspected the jars—discovered in a sixth-century BC underground shrine in Paestum—contained honey, an offering to the gods, but at least four tests over 70 years failed to find definitive proof, per Live Science. In a study published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, a team led by Oxford University chemist Luciana da Costa Carvalho identified intact sugars and proteins found in abundance in honey, thanks to advanced mass spectrometry techniques.

They detected hexose sugars, royal jelly (a worker bee secretion), and peptides, the latter of which matched the European honeybee. The presence of copper ions, which preserve organic material, likely helped keep traces of the honey intact for millennia. The ancient Greeks, who occupied the city they called Poseidonia until Roman conquest in the third century BC, thought honey "was a superfood," says Carvalho. The find supports the belief that honey symbolized immortality when presented as an offering. Carvalho says the new evidence illustrates how modern science can answer questions left open for generations, and provide a sweeter understanding of ancient religious practices, per a release.