Archaeologists find ancient Egyptian cheese

Another Egyptian mission at Saqqara has discovered a group of Late Period pottery vessels marked with demotic inscriptions, some of which contained the remains of a white cheese. This type of cheese was called ‘haram’ by the ancient Egyptians – a word that became ‘haloum’ during the Coptic Period, and is now known as halloumi.

Some of the pots – all of which date to the Twenty-sixth and Twenty-seventh Dynasties – were found sealed and will be investigated at a later date.