My grad school dig in Turkey three years ago turned up a truly ancient snack

We were working a site near Antalya, carefully brushing away dirt from what looked like a storage jar. Last week, I was cleaning finds in the lab and found a single, perfectly preserved chickpea inside it. My professor just stared at it and said, 'That's a 3,000-year-old legume. Do not eat it.' I had to label it and everything. Has anyone else ever cataloged something that was basically just old food?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_adam1d ago

My archaeology professor at UCLA always said we'd find boring stuff. Then I spent a whole day logging 500-year-old olive pits from a Spanish shipwreck.

blairtaylor1d ago

Honestly though, is logging that stuff even important? Like they're just old olive pits. I get it's history but come on, a whole day for that? Seems like busywork to me. Maybe the professor had a point about finding boring things.