Emily Chan
All over the world, archaeologists and scientists have been awestruck by the discovery of a 1,700-year-old intact chicken egg that was laid in Roman Britain.
The one-of-a-kind specimen was so well-preserved that it actually still contained liquid inside of it.
During an excavation in 2010, the egg, along with four others, was dug up from a pit in a waterlogged area of Aylesbury, England. The site was being explored ahead of a major housing development project.
The eggs were lying next to a woven basket that may have once held bread, leather shoes, pottery vessels, and an animal bone. One of the eggs was already broken.
Unfortunately, two of the fragile eggs cracked as they were removed from the site, releasing a potent stench.
A team of researchers at the University of Kent conducted an analysis of the remaining egg. The three-dimensional images from a micro-CT scan showed that the egg’s interior contained a liquid mixture of its yolk and albumen.
While older eggs have been unearthed before, such as a collection of mummified eggs housed at the Natural History Museum in London, there are no other naturally preserved eggs known to be in such excellent condition as this one.
“We might have expected it to have leached out over the centuries, but it is still there,” said Edward Biddulph, senior project manager at Oxford Archaeology, the organization that was in charge of the excavation.
Most of the time, fragments of shells are found rather than whole eggs. Experts believe that the egg was deliberately placed next to the pit as an offering.
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