3600 Yrs Old World’s Oldest Cheese Found With Chinese Mummies

The world’s oldest known cheese was discovered in a 3,600-year-old coffin of a young woman discovered in northwestern China two decades back.

Recently, archaeologists found that the substance draped around the neck of the mummified body was cheese. It is felt that it’s the oldest known cheese ever discovered, reported Live Science.

With time the cheese in the coffin has dried out, becoming dense, hard, and powdery, said Fu Qiaomei, a paleogeneticist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, in an interview with NBC News.

The Bronze Age coffin was found during the excavation of the Xiaohe Cemetery in 2003. Due to the arid climate of the Tarim Basin desert, the woman’s coffin was well-preserved, including her boots, hat, and the cheese on her body. This mummy has suggested that cheese played a crucial role in the daily lives of the ancient Chinese people.

Cheese production is mentioned in murals in ancient Egyptian tombs dating back to 2000 BC. European cheese-making evidence goes back to 7,000 years. But the Tarim Basin cheese samples are the oldest physical examples found to date.