Olive oil from the 79 A.D. Vesuvius eruption stored at the Naples National Archaeological Museum (Italy)

Raffaele Sacchi,Francesco Siano,Antonello Paduano,Genoveffa Nuzzo,Francesco Addeo,Gaetano Di Pasquale,Andrea Motta,Carmine Lubritto,Alessia D’Auria,Simonetta Caira,Adele Cutignano,Paola Ricci,Alessandro Genovese,Gianluca Picariello

doi:10.1038/s41538-020-00077-w

Abstract

Using a range of chromatographic, spectroscopic, and mass spectrometric analytical techniques, we characterized one of the “edible items” found at the Vesuvius archeological sites and guarded at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples (MANN) in Naples, Italy. We authenticated the specimen contained in a glass bottle (Mann-S1 sample) as originally olive oil and mapped the deep evolution throughout its 2000 years of storage. Triacylglycerols were completely hydrolyzed, while the resulting (hydroxy) fatty acids had partly condensed into rarely found estolides. A complex pattern of volatile compounds arose mainly from breakdown of oleic acid. With excellent approximation, radiocarbon dating placed the find at the time of the Plinian Mount Vesuvius eruption in 79 A.D., indicating that Mann-S1 is probably the oldest residue of olive oil in the world found in bulk amount (nearly 0.7 L).

Highlights

Pompeii and Herculaneum represent extraordinary windows into the life of the ancient Romans
When the MANN provided us with a sample of organic matter guarded in an almost-full glass bottle photographed in Fig. 1a, we imagined that the historian Pliny the Younger, who attended and described the Vesuvius eruption (Plinius Juvenis, Epistulae ad Familiares, 6, 16), had come to our food science laboratory, wondering if it was a “Campania Felix” olive oil of his time and, in this case, what had remained of that antique oil
Modern analytical techniques are currently able to decipher the molecular code concealed in archeological food matter, contributing to the development of “archeometry,” which has anthropological and scientific relevance

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Pompeii and Herculaneum represent extraordinary windows into the life of the ancient Romans. For the first time to our knowledge, the authenticity scopy, high-resolution (HR)-GC of fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs), determination of free FAs and peroxide value, attenuated total reflectance–Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR), GC of sterols, and identity of an olive oil sample, hereinafter referred to as Mann-S1, which has been stored seemingly in its original glass solid phase microextraction (SPME)-GC/MS of volatile compounds and radiocarbon dating. Compared to the FA profile of a fresh EVOO sample (Fig. 5b), Mann-S1 contained very low amounts of oleic acid (C18:1n-9c) and its trans-isomer elaidic acid (C18:1n-9t) (2.3% and 1.5%, respectively), whereas linoleic acid (C18:2) and linolenic acid that the oil underwent during the eruption. Radiocarbon dating places Mann-S1 within the right timeframe corresponding to the eruption of 79 A.D. and authenticated the specimen as an original archeological olive oil of the Roman Imperial age

DISCUSSION

Findings

METHODS