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This is the story of a rather unusual scientific research that has brought together microbiologists, archaeologists and brewers. An Israeli team has managed to find yeasts thousands of years old and produce with beer. This discovery allows to consider recreating food consumed in antiquity.
With our correspondent in Jerusalem, Guilhem Delteil
It was in a dental laboratory of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem that this project was born.
The initial focus was on the hard sciences, recalls Dr. Michael Klutstein, one of the fathers of this research.
" We are studying how microorganisms cope with starvation, in situations where there are no nutrients available. And what we discovered is that yeast survives much longer than we originally thought. "
The archaeologists then handed over 21 pieces of ancient jars, the oldest dating back to Egyptian times, nearly 5,000 years ago. Six yeast strains still alive were found and five could be used to make beer, a drink very common in ancient times.
An extraordinary step forward for Dr. Yitzhak Paz of the Israel Antiquities Authority.
" In no search in the world, the researchers had managed to recreate the foods of the time. They found the breweries, but they failed to analyze and thus to reproduce the ancient foods. "
As part of this research, the brewing method was the one of today. But archaeologists and brewers now hope to apply the ancient recipes and recreate the beer of the pharaohs. The method could also be used for wine and cheese.