In a bizzare discovery, researchers in China have found that clumps of yellow matter that were found on the bodies of mummies from as early as 1615 BC are actually cheese, reported the Fox News.
The New York Time had previously reported that the Small River Cemetery No. 5 was discovered in 1934 and then forgotten for decades. However, excavation began in 2003.
Shocked by the revelation, researchers said that the dry and salty conditions in the Taklamakan Desert where the mummies were located helped to preserve the cheese for so many years.
The ancient cheesemakers were a Bronze Age people who buried their dead under boat-like wooden structures packed in cowhide, creating conditions that "vacuum-packed" the bodies and the cheese, says Andrej Shevchenko, whose study is to be published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
Shevchenko’s analysis also show that the well-aged cheese was made with a ‘starter’ bacteria and yeast instead of rennet from the guts of a young animal, creating a low-lactose cheese that Asia's lactose-intolerant people could have eaten.
