The secret in the world’s oldest cheese

IN 1885 tomb raiders in ancient Egypt discovered the final resting place of Ptahmes, a powerful mayor of Memphis, who ruled between 1290BC and 1213BC. Shifting sands buried the tomb once more until it was uncovered again in 2010 by a team led by researchers from Cairo University. The raiders seem to have ignored what may be its most valuable treasure: the world’s oldest cheese.Found in a store room among a number of broken jars, the solidified whitish mass was initially barely recognisable. It appeared to be entirely composed of sodium carbonate, the basis of soap, although it was covered with a bit of fabric that resembled a cheese cloth. Enrico Greco of the University of Catania, in Italy, theorised that if the substance had once been cheese, it had reacted with the exceptionally dry, salty and alkaline environment to turn the fats it had contained into soap.