Analysis Shows What Midas’ Mourners Ate Before His Burial

Before the legendary King Midas of Phrygia was buried, his mourners consumed a fancy meal of spicy barbecued sheep or goat accompanied by a drink containing grape wine, barley beer and honey mead, then buried the dirty dishes in the tomb with him, researchers from the Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology report in today’s issue of Nature. When the tomb was discovered in the 1950s, it was found to contain the body of an elderly man laid out in state amid fabulous riches. The tomb also reeked with the smell of rancid fat from the final barbecue.

New analysis of the remains in the dishes and cups shows that the mourners barbecued either sheep or goats, cut the meat from the bone, and seasoned it with Mediterranean herbs and spices. The cups contained distinctive residues indicating they drank a mixture of the three fermented beverages called kykeon. The food suggests that the Phrygian population was of European extraction, possibly from the Balkans or northern Greece.

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--Compiled by Times medical writer Thomas H. Maugh II