Scientists have baked a sourdough loaf of bread using yeast strains harvested from a 5,000-year-old mummy and now plan to see if they can use them to brew beer too.
The yeast came from Ötzi the Iceman, a famous corpse remarkably preserved by being frozen in Alpine ice near the Italy-Austria border until he was discovered in 1991. Ötzi has been the subject of intense study since he was found and has shed much light on pre-historic European people and their way of life.
Scientists have been recently studying the microorganisms preserved in and on Ötzi’s remains. One unexpected result of that work was that researchers extracted yeast and then used it to make sourdough bread.
“Eventually, we obtained a completely normal dough that rose within 24 hours − basically just like with ordinary yeast. We made some really good dough with it,” microbiologist Mohamed Sarhan said in statements posted to the website of Eurac Research where he works for the Institute for Mummy Studies.
“I’ve never baked bread before – and it showed. So the result definitely had room for improvement. But as I said, these were our very first experiments,” Sarhan added.
Now, homemade beer could also be on the menu.
“We want to pursue this further and involve specialized research teams from the food sector in the process. Bread is currently one of the obvious applications we’re considering; another is beer – we’ve already discussed this with experts from [German brewer] Weihenstephan,” he said.
The harvested yeasts only live in cold conditions so are believed to have entered Ötzi’s body at some point after he died. Genetic analysis suggested they entered his body relatively soon after death.
Ötzi has long been the focus of fascination. His body preserves the oldest tattoos ever discovered with a total of 61 markings. There is also huge interest in how he died high up in the mountains in an icy wilderness about 5,300 years ago. He appears to have been shot in the back by an arrow in what is often described as one of the world’s oldest cold-case murders.