Scientist bakes loaf of bread using '4,500-year-old yeast from Ancient Egyptian pottery'

The bread was described as 'rich and sweet'
Max Blackley
James Morris6 August 2019

A scientist has said he used what could have been 4,500-year-old yeast from Ancient Egypt to bake a loaf of sourdough bread – and hailed it “incredible”.

Seamus Blackley, who is also famous as the brainchild of the Xbox games console, said he extracted the yeast sample from Ancient Egyptian pottery while on a research project in Massachusetts with Egyptologist Serena Love and microbiologist Richard Bowman.

Mr Blackley shared the results of his experiment in a viral Twitter post.

The taste of the bread, he later told the Standard, was “richer and sweeter” than normal sourdough.

Mr Blackley said samples were taken from the pores of the ancient pots. He then used a careful sterilisation technique before “waking” the sample organisms. After adding water and olive oil, he said it “rose beautifully” while being baked, with an “incredible” aroma.

However, he also warned the samples still need to be analysed before he and his colleagues can be completely sure they were legitimate.

Mr Blackley told the Standard on Tuesday: “This project arose out of my love for Egyptology and baking. I realised that I could possibly recreate the bread that the Egyptians loved so much.

“This bread was baked in an oven like normal sourdough, just for practice and fun. We are developing the tools we need to properly bake like Egyptians over the next few months.

“The process is very complicated because we need to keep these precious samples uncontaminated. This means lots of sterilisation, pasteurisation and good lane technique.

"The baking part with these ancient wholemeal grains is also pretty tricky."

He added: “It tasted richer and sweeter than other sourdough I’ve used and collected. Remember, though, that this was for practice. The sample wasn’t pure or analysed. So there’s more work.”

Mr Blackley said Dr Love and Mr Bowman took numerous samples which will be analysed over the next year.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in