I doubt it’s being turned into a product per se. This is just a piece of experimental archaeology. Knowing what ancient bread may have tasted like does give us some kind of insight into the deep past (although I’m skeptical of just how much). Not… Entirely sure how I feel about it, personally.
While I can see how the similarity to wealthy Europeans eating bits of Egyptian mummies makes people uncomfortable, it’s a pretty superficial similarity. They didn’t just scoop bits of Ötzi out and use it to leaven bread, there’s a whole microbiome on Ötzi that would make that unsafe. They cultured specific yeasts, and grew fresh samples. Ötzi’s still in the general area where he lived, he was found in the alps and his remains are in Italy. His discovery and recovery were to my knowledge celebrated at the time, including in his homeland, and have continued to be celebrated. His remains weren’t stolen.
This is very, very different from stealing Egyptian mummies from a colonised Egypt, without the consent of the Egyptian people, shipping them halfway around the world, and grinding them up to eat, because you guess that the remains of the mystical, exotic people probably have magic properties.
I doubt it’s being turned into a product per se. This is just a piece of experimental archaeology. Knowing what ancient bread may have tasted like does give us some kind of insight into the deep past (although I’m skeptical of just how much). Not… Entirely sure how I feel about it, personally.
While I can see how the similarity to wealthy Europeans eating bits of Egyptian mummies makes people uncomfortable, it’s a pretty superficial similarity. They didn’t just scoop bits of Ötzi out and use it to leaven bread, there’s a whole microbiome on Ötzi that would make that unsafe. They cultured specific yeasts, and grew fresh samples. Ötzi’s still in the general area where he lived, he was found in the alps and his remains are in Italy. His discovery and recovery were to my knowledge celebrated at the time, including in his homeland, and have continued to be celebrated. His remains weren’t stolen.
This is very, very different from stealing Egyptian mummies from a colonised Egypt, without the consent of the Egyptian people, shipping them halfway around the world, and grinding them up to eat, because you guess that the remains of the mystical, exotic people probably have magic properties.