Alberto Angela was right: the Mann has the oldest olive oil in history

During an inspection of the storerooms of the National Archaeological Museum in Naples for the episode of Tonight in Pompeii, Alberto Angela had discovered in 2018 a small bottle containing the oldest olive oil in history. Two years ago, the well-known presenter had said he was drawn to a fragment of a fresco depicting a bottle with oil, and as he continued his visit by taking photos with his smartphone, he stopped at a bottle that looked “surprisingly like” the one in the fresco. Scholars from theUniversity of Naples Federico II had said that it was perhaps the oldest olive oil.

Now there is certainty, and the study has been published in the Nature Group’s journal NPJ Science of Foods. Thanks to a collaboration between the University’s Department of Agriculture and the Mann, an investigation is under way into the organic finds preserved in the deposits. The studies were conducted by a multidisciplinary team coordinated by Professor Raffaele Sacchi and have made it possible to verify for the first time the authenticity and molecular identity of a sample of olive oil contained in a bottle buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD.

“This is the oldest olive oil sample to have come down to us in large quantities,” Sacchi confirmed. "The identification of the nature of the archaeological oil bottle gives us irrefutable proof of the importance that olive oil had in the daily diet of the populations of the Mediterranean basin and in particular of the ancient Romans in Campania Felix."

The use of molecular techniques and carbon-14 dating have made it possible to trace the contents of the bottle: a solid substance with a waxy consistency found presumably at Herculaneum during archaeological excavations initiated by Prince d’Elboeuf in the 18th century and continued under Charles of Bourbon

Alberto Angela was right: the Mann has the oldest olive oil in history

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