Sometimes an archaeological mystery does not need a new excavation. It simply needs science to catch up! In 1954, archaeologists excavating an underground Greek shrine at Paestum in southern Italy discovered several bronze vessels containing a mysterious orange-brown, sticky residue with a strong waxy smell. The vessels dated to approximately 530-510 BCE, when the Greek settlement was still known as Poseidonia. Six hydriae and two amphorae had been carefully arranged inside the shrine, suggesting their contents were part of a deliberate offering. Archaeologists initially believed the residue was what remained of honeycomb. Honey was highly valued in the ancient Mediterranean as a food, sweetener, ingredient in medicinal preparations, cosmetic substance, and ritual offering. It also carried associations with the divine, death, regeneration, and immortality. There was only one problem: the science could not prove that honey was present. Over the following decades, three separate investigations examined the residue but failed to detect convincing evidence of honey. Researchers instead proposed that the vessels had contained animal fat, vegetable fat, wax, or resin contaminated with pollen and insect remains. The mystery remained unresolved for roughly 70 years!! A new research team recently returned to the residue with analytical methods that earlier researchers did not have. Using several forms of mass spectrometry, spectroscopy, proteomics, and small-molecule analysis together, they detected: • Hexose sugars, including the kinds of simple sugars abundant in honey • Sugar-degradation products and organic acids • Lipids closely resembling those found in modern beeswax • Peptides connected to the western honeybee, Apis mellifera • Major royal jelly proteins produced in honeybee secretions The residue’s chemical profile was remarkably similar to modern beeswax and showed important similarities to both fresh and experimentally aged honeycomb. Together, these findings provide the strongest direct molecular evidence that the vessels once held honey, most likely offered in the form of whole honeycomb.

Happy Monday!! When Nicholas Culpeper published The English Physitian in 1652, he presented plants as part of a living cosmos. Within his system, herbs, organs, bodily processes, and illnesses could all be associated with planetary influences! Two important principles in this approach were known as sympathy and antipathy: 🔥 Sympathy: working through correspondence - In sympathetic treatment, a plant governed by the same planet connected with an organ, bodily function, or condition might be used to support or strengthen it. - For example, an herb associated with Mars could sometimes be used sympathetically for something Culpeper also placed under Mars. The reasoning was that the plant and the condition shared a planetary correspondence. 🌹 Antipathy: working through opposition Antipathy followed a different idea: instead of working with the same planetary influence, the herbalist might choose a plant ruled by a planet considered contrary to the one associated with the illness. Culpeper repeatedly treated Mars and Venus as opposing influences. In The English Physitian, he describes Venus herbs as addressing Venus-related conditions “by sympathy” and certain Mars-related conditions “by antipathy.” In another example, he explains that a Venus herb could benefit the head through its antipathy toward Mars while working sympathetically upon parts governed by Venus. The English Physitian (1652), Graeme Tobyn’s analysis of Culpeper’s planetary assignments This wasn’t quite as simple as: Mars causes the condition, so always use Venus. Culpeper’s reasoning could also consider the affected part of the body, the planet associated with the disease, relationships between planets and signs, the qualities of the herb, and the individual circumstances surrounding the illness. His later astrological medical writing even describes conditions involving Venus and Mars as arising through one influence “by Sympathy” and the other “by Antipathy.” Semeiotica Uranica: An Astrological Judgment of Diseases