I think this is an urban legend. What do you think? Read on.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Honey/Archive_1#Oldest_found_honey_and_spoilageHoney was found in one of the Egyptian pyramids, estimated at several thousand years old, and it was still good.
- is this for real? any sources? 202.156.2.35 14:32, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I suspect "good" is in the sense of "edible" not "high quality." I find it believable with that qualification. It's part of beekeeper folklore. Pollinator 14:37, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- A cursory googling doesn't find any confirmation of this "honey in pyramid"
story. I do find a reference to a child preserved in honey, but this has no
confirmation and is actually mentioned on snopes.com as likely an (early)
urban legend:
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/cannibal/tapping.htm User:Martijn faassen
Some more googling on honey in the pyramids shows up this page:
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/yuyatb.htmNot a pyramid (but valley of kings), and not honey (but initially misidentified as such). User:Martijn faassen
I just checked the latest edition of The Hive and the Honeybee, a voluminous standard reference on bees and beekeeping. It repeats the assertion, without attribution. Since there is a large panel of well respected scientists that put this together, I think they'd have dropped it, if it were merely a legend.
Quote: "...edible honey has been unearthed from the tombs of pharoahs after many thousands of years in clay pots"
Honey was a major part of the process of embalming, and was produced in large quantities in early Egypt, so it does not seem farfetched. Probably the best author to check for authoritative comment would be Eva Crane, who has done a lot of work on beekeeping history, but I don't have any of her works at hand. Pollinator 18:05, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)
A large panel of well respected scientists can still make mistakes, especially when it pertains areas not their own science, and especially when it involves "lore" knowledge. Note that 'tombs of pharaos' does not necessarily mean 'pyramids', as is asserted now on the article; I suggest we change that at least.
I see this piece of lore repeated over and over on web pages relating honey, especially when detailing the amazing properties of it, but I see anything ranging from 'small residues' to 'jars of honey' to 'honeycomb' as what was found, and so far no references to an authorative source. It's also listed on 'amazing factoid' pages.
One reference so far, is an archeologist T,M. Davies who is supposed to have found honey:
http://www.beekmanandbeekman.com/honeytidbits.html but on the previously listed page:
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/yuyatb.htm we see a reference to a certain 'Theodore M. Davis', and that's the page talking about a jar of something that is initially *misidentified* as honey. As evidenced at
http://anubis4_2000.tripod.com/SpecialExhibits/Davis.htm it turned out to be natron. Could that be the source of this bit of folklore? In that case honey wasn't found. Or was honey found on another occasion? User:Martijn faassen
Found some more information; this time "Small pottery flasks, which according to the hieratic inscriptions on the side originally contained honey, were found in the tomb of the boy-king, Tutankhamun", as mentioned here:
http://www.kendall-bioresearch.co.uk/sacredinsect.htm If that's true, then that implies there *wasn't* any honey there anymore to be edible. User: Martijn faassen
(A week later) Is any action going to be taken on this article? I think I showed convincingly enough there is no evidence honey was found in any pyramids, and that the claims in general about finding edible honey in Egyptian tombs are - while an oft-repeated fact - somewhat dubious.
My preference would be to change the article taking out the whole line referencing the archeological honey finds until more evidence comes along. If it turns out there were such finds, we can add it again. If we can confirm definitely that this is untrue, then I believe this should be noted too, in the light of the many claims to the opposite.
I don't want to change this page myself however, without at least some input from others.
User: Martijn faassen
Have you (or anybody) checked any of Eva Crane's historical works? She's about the most authoritative person on the planet as far as bee history goes. If it isn't there, delete. I suspect that there is some truth to the folklore, but the original reference would be old and would not be on the Internet. I'm sorry, I'm not near any university library, so I can't check the reference myself.Pollinator 20:50, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I propose that while we're actually unsure about the tomb story, let alone the pyramid story, and this is stated as fact in the article but is based on hearsay but cannot be confirmed by either of us, we actually remove this. We can simply leave in that honey can be kept for a very long time, of course.
--Martijn faassen 21:45, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Since nobody objected I've removed the "edible honey in Egyptian pyramid" reference. If someone can come up with evidence of course we should re-add it.
--Martijn faassen 23:45, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Found report in The Evolution of the Hebrew People and Their Influence on Civilization by Laura Hulda Wild c1917 (pp16)[1])
It seems to be related somewhat to the story about T.M. Davies.
Also found an earlier reference to the same in The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine By Roy J. Friedman c1906 (pp70)[2]
Found a reference to fresh honey found in an Egyptian tomb and witnessed by Gabriele D'Annunzio in Gabriele D'Annunzio: defiant archangel By John Woodhouse c1998 (pp180)[3]
-- Anonymous 03:27, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
Topic: Very Old Honey? (Read 9112 times)