People want to eat the world's oldest piece of cheese

The cheese found in a tomb in Egypt. Picture supplied by the University of Catania and Cairo University for The New York Times.

The cheese found in a tomb in Egypt. Picture supplied by the University of Catania and Cairo University for The New York Times.

Published Aug 20, 2018

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You would have to be a very serious cheese lover to take a bite of this cheese!

The New York Times reports: "archaeologists cleaning sand from an ancient Egyptian tomb discovered a group of broken jars, one of them containing a mysterious white substance." 

"The team had guesses as to what the material might be, but a new analysis published in the journal Analytical Chemistry offers an answer: What they found during that excavation was an approximately 3,200-year-old piece of cheese, one of the oldest solid specimens discovered," according to the report.

The cheese was found in what is believed to be the tomb of Ptahmes, a high-ranking Egyptian official in the 13th century B.C.

It was most likely chevre, a type of goats cheese which is really acidic.

And even after years and years of maturation and the possibility of it being poisonous; there are still some people who (hopefully) jokingly say they would eat the cheese.

LET US PAIR IT WITH A GLASS OF SARCOPHAGUS RED AND FEEL WHAT IT IS TO TRULY LIVE FOR ONCE YOU COWARDS https://t.co/w10rECTP5d

— Johnny Chiodini (@johnneh) August 17, 2018

Don’t care. Still eating it. https://t.co/XOs2sEPBjk

— Jake Vig (@Jake_Vig) August 17, 2018

Is it time to stop opening Egyptian Tombs https://t.co/QscFaERcAd

— Upulie Divisekera (@upulie) August 17, 2018

You'd have to be very brave to take a bite out of this cheese. 

Preliminary analysis has reportedly found that in the cheese there is a bacteria that causes brucellosis, an infectious disease that can cause fevers, headaches and muscle pain.

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