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A slab of bog butter found near Enniskillen, now located in the Ulster Museum. Bazonka/Wikipedia
The Daily PollPoll: Would you eat Bronze Age bog butter?
Slabs of bog butter have been handed into the National Museum of Ireland.
BOG BUTTER IS among some of the 2,000 archaeological items handed into the National Museum of Ireland in the past year.
Butter was sometimes buried in a bog to preserve it, with the practice dating back to as early as 2000 BC.
Maeve Sikora, Keeper of Antiquities at the National Museum of Ireland, says the butter is in fact “still surviving”.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, she described the butter as a “white looking” wax with a “very distinctive smell”.
“It’s often noticed on bogs or it has been in the past because of its colour. So, while the bog is completely brown, the bog butter will be this white material in the middle that the crows are landing on and eating,” Sikora said.
The bog butter is good enough for the crows, but would you give eating preserved bog butter a go?
So today we’re asking: Would you eat Bronze Age bog butter?
Poll Results:
No, definitely not (4069)
Yes, why not (1770)
Maybe, I'd need to get a good look at it first (1076)
Yes, but only if my life depended on it (445)
have your say