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		</div><p>Israeli researchers have raised a glass to celebrate a long-brewing project of making beer and mead using yeasts extracted from ancient clay vessels – some more than 5,000 years old.</p>
<p>Archaeologists and microbiologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority and four Israeli universities teamed up to study yeast colonies found in microscopic pores in pottery fragments.</p>
<p>The shards were found at Egyptian, Philistine and Judean archaeological sites in Israel spanning from 3,000 BC to the 4th century BC.</p>
<p>The scientists are touting the brews made from “resurrected” yeasts as an important step in experimental archaeology, a field that seeks to reconstruct the past in order to better understand the flavour of the ancient world.</p>
<p><em>“What we discovered was that yeast can actually survive for a very, very long time without food,”</em> said Hebrew University microbiologist Michael Klutstein.</p>
<p><em>“Today we are able to salvage all these living organisms that live inside the nanopores and to revive them and study their properties.”</em></p>
<p>Beer was a staple of the daily diet for the people of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia.</p>
<p>Early Egyptian texts refer to a variety of different brews, including iron beer, friend’s beer, and beer of the protector.</p>
<p>The yeast samples came from nearly two dozen ceramic vessels found in excavations around the country, including a salvage dig in central Tel Aviv, a Persian-era palace in southern Jerusalem and ‘En Besor, a 5,000-year-old Egyptian brewery near Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip.</p>
<p>The project was spearheaded by Hebrew University microbiologist Ronen Hazan and antiquities authority archaeologist Yitzhak Paz.</p>
<p>Other researchers of ancient beers, such as University of Pennsylvania archaeologist Patrick McGovern, have concocted drinks based on ancient recipes and residue analysis of ceramics.</p>
<p>But the Israeli scientists say this is the first time fermented drinks have been made from revived ancient yeasts.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Cocktails with Cleopatra? A team of scientists from <a href="https://twitter.com/HebrewU?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@HebrewU</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/IsraelAntiquity?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@IsraelAntiquity</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/BarIlanU?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@BarIlanU</a> and #@@TelAvivUni scraped yeast from ancient beer jugs to recreate the 5,000-year-old brew. Don&#39;t say we don&#39;t take our l&#39;chaims seriously.</p>
<p>Credit: Yaniv Berman/IAI. <a href="https://t.co/OYBWOb7Zk9">pic.twitter.com/OYBWOb7Zk9</a></p>
<p>&mdash; Hebrew University (@HebrewU) <a href="https://twitter.com/HebrewU/status/1131201609650888710?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 22, 2019</a></p></blockquote>
<p><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>Aren Maeir, a Bar Ilan University archaeologist, said: <em>“It opens up a whole new field of the possibility that perhaps other microorganisms survived as well, and you can identify foods such as cheese, wine, pickles,”</em> opening a portal into tasting cultures of the past.</p>
<p>For this initial experiment, the team paired up with a Jerusalem craft brewer to make a basic modern-style ale using yeast extracted from the pots.</p>
<p>The ale had a thick white head, with a caramel colour and a distinctly funky nose. The mead, made using yeast extracted from a vessel found in the ruins of a palace near Jerusalem that contained honey wine roughly 2,400 years ago, was champagne bubbly and dry, with a hint of green apple.</p>
<p>The beer incorporates modern ingredients, like hops, that were not available in the ancient Middle East – but it is the revived yeast that provides much of the flavour.</p>
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