4 ms·

"which amounts to centuries in many cases." Pretty sure I read about honey found in a Pharaoh's tomb - that's millennia, not centuries. Quick search: https:/

"which amounts to centuries in many cases." Pretty sure I read about honey found in a Pharaoh's tomb - that's millennia, not centuries. Quick search: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-science-behind-honeys-eternal-shelf-life-1218690/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-science-be...

kragen 1y ago
I edited "millennia" into "centuries" in my comment above because the Wikipedia article claimed those claims didn't pan out: > (However, no edible honey has been found in Egyptian tombs; all such cases have been proven to be other substances or only chemical traces.[29]) ...but the citation is from 01975. The Smithsonian page is a great link! It mentions that the pH of honey is 3–4.5 (another crucial fact omitted from the BBC article) and mentions the peroxide, but not the methylglyoxal. The Smithsonian article contains this link: > Modern archeologists, excavating ancient Egyptian tombs, have often found something unexpected amongst the tombs’ artifacts: pots of honey, thousands of years old, and yet still preserved which goes to a Google Books page I can't see (perhaps because I'm in Argentina) of a book from 02006 that is apparently about beekeeping, not archaeology, called "Letters from the Hive", published by Random House Children's Books. The copy of the book that I've been able to get does talk extensively about the uses of honey in ancient Egypt, but, unless I missed it, doesn't mention pots of honey being found in tombs at all. Even if so, it's unclear whether the book would have evidence posterior to Wikipedia's 01975 citation; it isn't the kind of book that cites its sources.
- gerdesj 1y ago
  I'm so sorry but I can't help myself: 01975 is the dialling code for somewhere in Aberdeenshire! WP: "(However, no edible honey has been found in Egyptian tombs; all such cases have been proven to be other substances or only chemical traces.[29])" [29] is https://gwern.net/doc/history/1975-leek.pdf https://gwern.net/doc/history/1975-leek.pdf - this does not look like a peer reviewed paper. They do look to be reputable and they refute some rubbish documented cases of ancient honey but not all of them. I'm going to call out the WP article as being factually wanting on that point.
  - kragen 1y ago
    Ha, I had no idea about Aberdeenshire! I agree that in 01975 peer review was not a given, but it does seem to be academic work, as opposed to a children's book.
  - bookofjoe 1y ago
    gwern FTW!
  - martey 1y ago
    > [29] is https://gwern.net/doc/history/1975-leek.pdf https://gwern.net/doc/history/1975-leek.pdf - this does not look like a peer reviewed paper. They do look to be reputable and they refute some rubbish documented cases of ancient honey but not all of them. The Gwern link is just a PDF copy of an article from a 1975 issue of "Bee World": https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0005772X.1975.11097564 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0005772X.1975.11... I can't speak to the journal's rigor in the 1970s, but they seem like a more reliable source than any other mentioned in this discussion.
    - kragen 1y ago
      Also, peer review is almost unrelated to rigor. Plenty of sloppy crap gets peer reviewed, and, for example, none of Einstein's annus mirabilis papers did.
  - gwern 1y ago
    > I'm going to call out the WP article as being factually wanting on that point. No, it's not. What is factually wanting is any case of an actual tomb honey. When I looked into it, every single supposed tomb honey, not already debunked by Leek, deadends in a useless citation which is 'someone somewhere once found tomb honey trust me bro'. Clearly made-up. They don't exist. The burden of proof is on anyone who still believes in tomb honey to name a single specific verified instance, with time and place and tomb, and someone actually witnessing it and analyzing or eating it and proving it's honey, rather than several other possible residues like the Leek examples. Otherwise, it's just more telephone game nonsense. (Note: the Leek PDF is unfortunately not working right now, because Hetzner has temporarily disabled my account over torrenting alerts.)

kragen 1y ago

I edited "millennia" into "centuries" in my comment above because the Wikipedia article claimed those claims didn't pan out: > (However, no edible honey has been found in Egyptian tombs; all such cases have been proven to be other substances or only chemical traces.[29]) ...but the citation is from 01975. The Smithsonian page is a great link! It mentions that the pH of honey is 3–4.5 (another crucial fact omitted from the BBC article) and mentions the peroxide, but not the methylglyoxal. The Smithsonian article contains this link: > Modern archeologists, excavating ancient Egyptian tombs, have often found something unexpected amongst the tombs’ artifacts: pots of honey, thousands of years old, and yet still preserved which goes to a Google Books page I can't see (perhaps because I'm in Argentina) of a book from 02006 that is apparently about beekeeping, not archaeology, called "Letters from the Hive", published by Random House Children's Books. The copy of the book that I've been able to get does talk extensively about the uses of honey in ancient Egypt, but, unless I missed it, doesn't mention pots of honey being found in tombs at all. Even if so, it's unclear whether the book would have evidence posterior to Wikipedia's 01975 citation; it isn't the kind of book that cites its sources.

gerdesj 1y ago
I'm so sorry but I can't help myself: 01975 is the dialling code for somewhere in Aberdeenshire! WP: "(However, no edible honey has been found in Egyptian tombs; all such cases have been proven to be other substances or only chemical traces.[29])" [29] is https://gwern.net/doc/history/1975-leek.pdf https://gwern.net/doc/history/1975-leek.pdf - this does not look like a peer reviewed paper. They do look to be reputable and they refute some rubbish documented cases of ancient honey but not all of them. I'm going to call out the WP article as being factually wanting on that point.
- kragen 1y ago
  Ha, I had no idea about Aberdeenshire! I agree that in 01975 peer review was not a given, but it does seem to be academic work, as opposed to a children's book.
- bookofjoe 1y ago
  gwern FTW!
- martey 1y ago
  > [29] is https://gwern.net/doc/history/1975-leek.pdf https://gwern.net/doc/history/1975-leek.pdf - this does not look like a peer reviewed paper. They do look to be reputable and they refute some rubbish documented cases of ancient honey but not all of them. The Gwern link is just a PDF copy of an article from a 1975 issue of "Bee World": https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0005772X.1975.11097564 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0005772X.1975.11... I can't speak to the journal's rigor in the 1970s, but they seem like a more reliable source than any other mentioned in this discussion.
  - kragen 1y ago
    Also, peer review is almost unrelated to rigor. Plenty of sloppy crap gets peer reviewed, and, for example, none of Einstein's annus mirabilis papers did.
- gwern 1y ago
  > I'm going to call out the WP article as being factually wanting on that point. No, it's not. What is factually wanting is any case of an actual tomb honey. When I looked into it, every single supposed tomb honey, not already debunked by Leek, deadends in a useless citation which is 'someone somewhere once found tomb honey trust me bro'. Clearly made-up. They don't exist. The burden of proof is on anyone who still believes in tomb honey to name a single specific verified instance, with time and place and tomb, and someone actually witnessing it and analyzing or eating it and proving it's honey, rather than several other possible residues like the Leek examples. Otherwise, it's just more telephone game nonsense. (Note: the Leek PDF is unfortunately not working right now, because Hetzner has temporarily disabled my account over torrenting alerts.)