A worker has found a massive 22lb lump of butter dating back 2,000 years buried in an Irish bog - which is still edible.

Jack Conway, a turf cutter from Maghera, northern Ireland, discovered the prehistoric dairy product which 'smelled like cheese' while working on Emlagh bog last week.

The butter may have been buried to preserve it, but experts claimed it could have been an offering to the gods so that they might keep that area safe.

Jack Conway, a turf cutter from Maghera, northern Ireland, discovered the prehistoric dairy product (pictured), which 'smelled like cheese', while working on Emlagh bog last week

It was unearthed in the Drakerath area where the boundaries of three ancient baronies met.

Andy Halpin, assistant keeper in the museum's Irish Antiquities Division, told The Irish Times: 'These bogs in those times were inaccessible, mysterious places.

'It is at the juncture of three separate kingdoms, and politically it was like a no-man's-land - that is where it all hangs together.'

He added: 'Theoretically the stuff is still edible - but we wouldn't say it's advisable.'

Bog butter was often used to preserve butter but experts claimed it could have been buried as an offering to the gods - so that they might keep that area safe (From left Savina Donohoe, curator of Cavan County Museum, Jack Conway, and Andy Halpin, assistant keeper, Irish Antiquities Division)

Mr Conway found the butter 12 feet below the ground and reported it to Cavan County Museum

It was then transferred to the National Museum to be carbon dated.

WHAT IS BOG BUTTER? Butter that has been buried in peat is often referred to as 'bog butter'. The earliest known examples date back almost 2,000 years, but there are records of people burying butter as recently as the 1800s. Burying the butter was a good method of preserving it - as butter made in ancient times without salt expired quickly. The low oxygen conditions of the bog could help preserve it. Advertisement

Savina Donohoe, curator of Cavan County Museum, told UTV Ireland: 'It did smell like butter.'

'After I had held it in my hands, my hands really did smell of butter.

She added: 'There was even a smell of butter in the room it was in.'

There was no discovery of a cover over the bog butter, which led Mr Halpin to suggest the artefact was possibly not intended to be dug up.

Similar discoveries are said to be common in Scotland and Ireland.

Such finds are common in Ireland and Scotland.