The only known intact chicken egg from Great Britain’s Roman empire was uncovered during a dig in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire.
Researchers from Oxford Archaeology, who found the egg, said that the 1,700-year-old breakfast item was a “genuinely unique discovery” and were “blown away” when they discovered it still had its contents inside, according to the BBC. Oxford Archaeology’s Edward Biddulph said he and the team expected the insides to have leached out over the centuries, but the yolk and white were still apparently intact.
Although the egg was apparently found at some point between 2007 and 2016, the finding was not revealed to the public until 2019. Even then, the extent of the discovery “was more than could be foreseen,” but the egg still had more secrets to reveal.
One of those secrets was apparently a “powerful Sulphur smell described as ‘unforgettable’ by those (un)fortunate enough to be there,” according to a Twitter post from Oxford Archaeology.
Some finds really blow your mind and even after years keep getting more and more exciting as research continues. The Berryfields (Aylesbury) egg is the perfect example as this @BucksCouncil blog shows https://t.co/XUiYcoDsfS pic.twitter.com/2CveG0yyKv
— Oxford Archaeology (@oatweet) February 12, 2024
Scanning work conducted at the University of Kent finally revealed the contents to the team. “It produced an amazing image that indicated that the egg, apart from being intact – which is incredible enough – also retained its liquid inside, presumably deriving from the yolk, albumen etc,” Biddulph noted.
Experts from London’s Natural History Museum have also studied the egg, focusing their efforts on how best to preserve it into the future. Surely the obvious answer is to hard-boil and pickle it? (I’m just kidding). (RELATED: Mayan ‘Superhighways’ Suggest We Need To Rethink How Advanced Our Ancestors Really Were)
“There are older eggs with contents – for example, the [museum] has a series of mummified birds’ eggs, probably excavated… from the catacombs of sacred animals at Denderah, Upper Egypt in 1898 which may be older,” said the museum’s senior curator of the birds’ eggs and nests collection, Douglas Russell, according to the BBC. “However, this is the oldest unintentionally preserved avian egg I have ever seen. That makes it fascinating.”
The next step in the process is to try and remove the contents without damaging the shell. Why does the team want to do this? Because science, that’s why.