Archaeologists discovered centuries-old cherries surprisingly well-preserved inside two glass bottles stashed in George Washington’s historic Virginia home.
They found the bottles during excavations as part of a major revitalization of the first US president’s mansion, known as Mount Vernon, the Washington Post reported.
According to a statement from Mount Vernon, the bottles, appearing to date from the 1740s to 1750s, were unearthed beneath a brick floor laid in the 1770s.
To help preserve the roughly 250-year-old glass bottles, researchers transferred their contents – cherries, pits, stems and a “gooey residue” – into smaller vessels for future analysis.
“Not only did we recover intact, sealed bottles, but they contained organic material that can provide us with valuable insight and perspective into 18th-century lives at Mount Vernon,” the principal archaeologist, Jason Boroughs told the Post, adding: “These bottles have the potential to enrich the historic narrative, and we’re excited to have the contents analyzed so we can share this discovery with fellow researchers and the visiting public.”
Scientists speculate that the cherries were probably gathered at Mount Vernon in the 1770s, potentially before the revolutionary war, and stashed away for later use.
They believe a significant portion of the golden-hued liquid might be subterranean water that infiltrated the bottles as their corks decayed over the years.
The archaeological team was stunned when they stumbled upon the large bottles and realised they contained organic matter and that it was recognisable as including intact cherries, also with a scent of cherry blossom.
The bottles had been imported from England during the colonial era and the fruit could very well have been picked by enslaved people on the estate, the Washington family’s grand mansion overlooking the Potomac River near Washington DC.
