These small lumps of fermented dairy, laid around the necks of the deceased, represent the longest-aged cheese ever discovered–at about 3,500 years old. Not only is the ancient cheese incredibly well-preserved,

A bizarre 'cheese necklace' found on a 3,500-year-old mummy has rewritten an important part of human history related to the development of dairy farming

When the 3,600-year-old coffin of a young woman was excavated in northwestern China two decades ago, archeologists discovered a mysterious substance laid out along her neck like a piece of jewelry.

Scientists have successfully pulled a DNA strand from what they believe to be the world’s oldest cheese, yanking it from Bronze Age mummies in a Chinese graveyard, circa 2,000 B.C. The dairy delight is kefir cheese — a modern-day cream cheese health substitute — and was found strangely smeared or “scattered” around the heads and necks of preserved corpses,

The Guinness Book needs to update its records: the oldest cheese in the world has been found smeared on the heads and necks of 3,600-year-old mummies in China’s Tarim Basin, surpassing the age of a cheese identified in the tomb of an Ancient Egyptian mayor by several hundred years.