I don’t know about you, but I go absolutely nuts when anything is found in a tomb. I don’t know if I was maybe brainwashed by watching Stargate too much as a child, but I firmly believe that everything found in a tomb is cool and mysterious. Maybe that’s not always the case. Maybe archaeologists excavate a roughly 2000-year-old tomb in Henan Province, China, and find nothing except some boring wine. Big deal.
Except it wasn’t wine, it was an elixir of immortality.
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As Xinhua is reporting, the 3.5 litres of liquid found in a bronze pot at the site was initially believed to be wine due to the aroma of alcohol that it gave off, but further testing revealed that the liquid is primarily composed of potassium nitrate and alunite. These are both key ingredients an immortality medicine mentioned in an ancient Taoist text, head archaeologist Pan Fusheng told Xinhua.
The tomb, located in Luoyang, belonged to a noble family from the Western Han Dynasty, which lasted from 202 BC through to 8 AD.
Sadly, the archaeologists probably won’t let you drink the juice.
