Ingredients for Salad Dressing Found in 2,400-year-old Shipwreck

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An international team of U.S. and Greek researchers did this study and investigated the remains of a 2,400 year old shipwreck that lies 230 feet (70 meters) deep and about half a mile (1 kilometer) off the coast of the Greek Island of Chios in the Aegean Sea.

They found many articles including amphoras, ceramic jars used by ancient Greeks and Romans. Identifying the jars and the contents will help the researchers to understand their living conditions.

The amphoras were used for shipping a variety of commodities at that time such as wine, oil, spices, grapes, olives, nuts, fish and other items. There are many who study such amphoras to determine the age and nationality of the ship it was from. Some amphoras hold the contents even now which helps them to identify more about the lifestyle of the people it belonged to. Other amphoras may not hold anything revealing less what was inside, DNA study could help in some of these cases.

Researcher Brendan Foley, a maritime archaeologist and historian of technology at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, who helped lead this 2005 expedition and they recovered two amphoras from the Chios wreck. A genetic analysis was done on these jars, by scraping the insides of the contents to get DNA samples.

Foley and his colleagues found olive oil and oregano in one of the jars, suggesting the jars might have held them as a mixture at that time. It was a surprise to the researchers since Chios area was considered to be a major exporter of fine wines. So, initially they assumed such jars must have held wine, but instead they found Olive oil and oregano mixture. The other jar evidence was inconclusive.

Foley told LiveScience:

"This is the first time that we've taken a jar like this that had no visible remains in it and known for sure what was in it”

The researchers found many amphoras in the shipwreck with the similar design as the one they found olive oil and oregano. They think the ship must have sunk while they were outbound from Chios carrying this cargo, which comprised two thirds of the total 350 amphoras found.

Foley said:

"The fact that we detected DNA of olives may mean that Chios exported more than wine….Their agricultural production might have been more sophisticated than we've suspected."

Foley said oregano may have done more just to flavor the oil. The Greeks today especially the older generation of women add oregano, thyme or sage not only to flavor the oil but help preserve the oils longer. Foley thinks the ancient Greeks might have done the same to preserve the oil also. Thanks to that technique the DNA was preserved inside the jars and the researchers were able to identify the contents.

Scientists are trying to apply this technique to identify the contents inside the jars and containers. Foley said it will give a broad knowledge of the living condition of the people at that time. They may apply this technology to identify the jars stored in museums and objects from excavations, but more study need to be done to authenticate this process.

The scientists also want to study amphoras from other wrecks and hope to publish their findings next year. Foley and Maria Hansson, Lund University in Sweden will report the salad dressings finding in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science.

It is interesting to find the ancient Greeks had used natural preservatives instead of the hundreds of preservatives and chemicals we find in the modern salad dressing.