Fish Sauce Used to Date Pompeii Eruption
Remains of rotten fish entrails have helped establish the precise dating of Pompeii’s destruction, according to Italian researchers who have analyzed the town’s last batch of garum, a pungent, fish-based seasoning.
Frozen in time by the catastrophic eruption that covered Pompeii and nearby towns nearly 2,000 years ago with nine to 20 feet of hot ash and pumice, the desiccated remains were found at the bottom of seven jars.
It has to do with the precise date of the eruption in A.D. 79, not the year. Interesting, too. Not something I’d eat though. . . .
Excuse me, but you incorrectly referred to this substance as “Fish Sauce” when the proper term is “Unspeakable Fish Sauce” — it was that pungent and infamous !!!!!!!
–ArchaeoFriend
Comment by ArchaeoFriend — October 1, 2008 @ 1:16 pm
2000 year old Worchestershire sauce anyone?….. uuummm, steaky.
pardon my ingnorance but didn’t the Romans invent what today we call Worchestershire sauce, and wasn’t it orginally made with fish scraps amoung other things?
Comment by shoey — October 2, 2008 @ 9:17 pm