Archaeologists Discover 3,000-Year-Old Cooking Failure

Archaeologists were thrilled to discover a Bronze Age pot in good condition at a dig in Denmark recently, and then they opened it to discover they'd just found a 3,000-year-old kitchen disaster.

According to The Local, archaeologist Kaj Rasmussen said that when they opened the pot they were surprised to find that instead of being full of remnants of corn or grains, it was full of a yellow crust burnt on the bottom and sides of the pot. Further analysis showed that the substance was probably bovine fat, and that the owner of the pot was probably trying to make hard cheese by boiling down whey to make a hard cheese that can be preserved for winter. The attempt did not go so well, though.

In fact, Rasmussen said it looks like 3,000 years ago someone had been trying to make some hard cheese, and had messed it up so badly and burnt the cheese so completely to the sides of the pot that they just threw away the whole pot, rather than try to clean it off and start again. A lot of modern people probably know what that feels like.

"I cannot help but wonder if someone had a guilty conscience. It's well and truly burnt and must have smelt terrible," Rasmussen said.