A team of researchers from the University of South Florida has discovered olive oil residue on potsherds dating back to the Bronze Age. The sherds were discovered by Italian archaeologist Giuseppe Voza, while he was excavating a site in Sicily back in the 1990s. Two decades later, conservators from the Archaeological Museum of Siracusa reconstructed the pot.

Davide Tanasi, an assistant professor of history at the University of South Florida, noticed that the pot had an unusual shape and decided to run residue tests on its interior to determine its purpose. “The shape of this storage container and the nearby septum was like nothing else Voza found at the site in Castelluccio,” Tanasi said.