In this specific case, the yeasts were discovered while partially thawing the mummy to take tissue samples. It took over three months of cultivating to arrive at something that could actually be used to make sourdough, so these are not yeast bacteria that have ever actually been in Ötzi’s gut themselves. Still feels weird, but i’d say it’s not quite in the same ballpark as British colonizers grinding Egyptian mummies into powder to ingest them as “medicine”.
i mean, these are not going anywhere, they are in a frozen vault somewhere in a museum in Northern Italy. Every once in a while, somebody comes up with a new article about how they’ve recreated his clothing or his tools or if he had any health conditions or smth like that
In this specific case, the yeasts were discovered while partially thawing the mummy to take tissue samples. It took over three months of cultivating to arrive at something that could actually be used to make sourdough, so these are not yeast bacteria that have ever actually been in Ötzi’s gut themselves. Still feels weird, but i’d say it’s not quite in the same ballpark as British colonizers grinding Egyptian mummies into powder to ingest them as “medicine”.
Interesting, I somehow didn’t realize they were still poking around Ötzi’s remains. Thanks for the info!
i mean, these are not going anywhere, they are in a frozen vault somewhere in a museum in Northern Italy. Every once in a while, somebody comes up with a new article about how they’ve recreated his clothing or his tools or if he had any health conditions or smth like that