An international team of researchers has discovered the remains of the oldest chicken egg north of the Alps.
It comes from Nördlingen and is almost 2,400 years old, as the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments announced on Tuesday in Munich.
When examining sediments from an ancient rubbish pit, millimeter-sized splinters of an egg shell came to light.
"The location amidst the leftovers suggests that the hen's egg was actually used for consumption," the statement said.
According to the Monuments Office, this is “the first direct evidence of human consumption of eggs north of the Alps”.
General conservator Mathias Pfeil said: "This find, which at first glance seems so inconspicuous, is evidence of a small turning point in human eating habits."
By the end of the Iron Age, people in Central Europe would have kept chickens as pets and status symbols rather than as livestock to lay eggs.
When it comes to animal bones, there are more remains of hens than of cocks until the 3rd century BC.
According to the information, archaeologists came across the Nördlinger garbage pit during an excavation in 2020.
Small finds were sieved and examined under the microscope.
The fragments of eggshells discovered were assigned to the bird species at the University of York in England using mass spectrometry of the protein molecules.
It's the Bankiva chicken.
Today's domestic chicken descends from this Southeast Asian breed.
With the help of the C14 method, the food waste was dated to the 4th century BC.