Archaeologists found rotten eggs amongst a small trove of treasures in a waterlogged pit in Aylesbury, England, a town near Oxford.

Three of the four eggs cracked during the excavation and released what the archaeologists called a "potent stench." We think that's putting it mildly.

The remaining egg is in good condition and is being stored at Oxford Archaeology HQ until it's ready to be put on display at the Buckinghamshire County Museum.

Once, during a fifth grade field trip pit stop, I accidentally set off a stink bomb packet I found in a mini mart. The entire store reeked within a few minutes of setting the bomb off, and I'm still mortified and deeply sorry about that incident to this day. I imagine this is how the archaeologists who recently discovered four ancient rotten eggs in a pit full of water in Aylesbury, England felt when they accidentally cracked three of them and released, to put it mildly, a “ potent stench .”

The vile chicken eggs, which looked like stones after spending 1,700 years buried underground, managed to stay pretty preserved, but were extremely fragile when the archaeologists discovered them.

“It’s incredible we even got one out,” Stuart Foreman, project manager, told The Independent .

News of the findings from our excavation at Berryfields in Aylesbury has appeared on the BBC website. A report on the site, in which the Roman egg was just one of the amazing discoveries, has just been published in an Oxford Archaeology monograph https://t.co/I3sRZ74Gpb pic.twitter.com/tiL1R0PRgU — Oxford Archaeology (@oatweet) December 6, 2019

In a statement , the team at Oxford Archaeology says Romans originally used the pit for malting and brewing, but locals eventually turned it into a wishing well, in which they tossed items like coins for good luck.

The archaeologists say the eggs released a pungent “sulfurous aroma.” No kidding. Rotten eggs smell, well, rotten, because of the abundance of two proteins inside: globulin and keratin. When both proteins decay, they release chemicals that give off that stinky sulfur smell. Now imagine what happens when you add a whole lot of time to that equation.



Researchers have found Roman eggs in Britain before. That's not new. But in the past, the eggs have always come in fragmented pieces. This is the first time archaeologists have dug up a Roman egg that's fully intact in the area—and just the second time they've found one anywhere.

Elsewhere in the pit, the scientists found treasures including coins, a wooden basket, leather shoes, and tools, which held up quite well thanks to being waterlogged—and presumably smelled a lot less like crap.