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Bog butter from 15th-16th century, found near Enniskillen, County Fermanagh.

2,000-Year-Old Lump of Butter Was Found in an Irish Bog

And it’s still edible!

| 2 min read

And it’s still edible!

Jack Conway was “cutting turf,” i.e., digging up peat moss from a bog to burn for warmth in the winter, in County Meath, Ireland, when he stumbled upon a 22-pound lump of butter. Researchers at the Cavan County Museum estimate the butter to be more than 2,000 years old.

It may sound strange, but such finds are actually common in Ireland. According to Smithsonian Magazine, turf cutters encounter chunks of the dairy, known as bog butter, every year.

Notable recent bog butter discoveries include a 3,000-year-old, three-foot-wide barrel stuffed with 77 pounds of butter found in 2009, and a 5,000-year-old wooden keg containing 100 pounds of butter found in 2013.

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In an article entitled “Bog Butter: A Two Thousand Year History” published in the Journal of Irish Archaeology, Caroline Earwood wrote that bog butter “is usually found as a whitish, solid mass of fatty material with a distinctive, pungent and slightly offensive smell. It is found either as a lump, or in containers which are most often made of wood but include baskets and skins.”

Some believe butter was placed in bogs as an offering to the gods or spirits. Others propose burying the butter in peat was a method of food processing to change the chemical composition and taste of the butter.

However, based on analysis of 274 records of bog butter, Earwood concludes that early Celtic people probably sunk butter in bogs to preserve it or protect it from thieves. The cool, low-oxygen, high-acid environment of the bog would have been an ideal means of preserving perishable food before modern refrigeration.

Peat bogs are so good at keeping things fresh that they have been known to almost perfectly mummify corpses, according to The Washington Post.

Given that level of preservation, most bog butter is edible to this day. Andy Halpin, assistant keeper at the Cavan County Museum’s Irish antiquities division, old the Irish Times, “Theoretically the stuff is still edible, but we wouldn’t say it’s advisable.”

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