While, according to Shakespeare, Queen Cleopatra was mourning her own youthful 'salad days' in which 'green judgment' had led to a regretted affair with Julius Caesar, her people it seems, were tucking into real salads of unbounded satisfaction.
DNA analysis of the inner surfaces of two amphoras, recovered in 2005 from the wreck of a trader lying in 70m of water off the Agean Greek island of Chios, has established that, while one probably held wine, the other contained olives and oregano.
The oregano would almost certainly have been mixed in with the olives, giving a distinctive flavour. This would have enhanced salads and other foods eaten raw, along with a number of fried dishes. The oregano would also have helped to preserve the oil during shipment and subsequent storage.
The recoveries and research were carried out by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, USA. Researcher Brendan Foley told US media that the find had established that Chios' agricultural production at that time 'might have been more sophisticated than we've suspected'. It had been thought that the island produced only wine.
It is hoped that the breakthrough DNA analysis technique - in which the original content of a seemingly empty amphora can be identified - will help build a more accurate picture of regional production and trade, as artefacts from other wrecks are studied. The research team is to analyse several dozen more amphoras recovered from a number of wrecks in the Aegean region.
'We can see what crops were grown where and when, and this will give us an entirely new look at the ancient economy,' said Foley. 'We can see what they were growing, what they were eating and how they prepared and preserved foods.'
A project report, completed by Foley and colleague Maria Hansson of Sweden's Lund University, is to appear in the Journal of Archaeological Science. |
