Irish workers have found an oak barrel, cut out of a trunk and full of butter, which archeologists say dates back to about 3,000 years ago.

John Fitzharris and Martin Lane spotted the largely intact barrel in Gilltown bog, between Timahoe and Staplestown.

The barrel, which is now housed at the Conservation Department of the National Museum of Ireland, is about three feet long and almost a foot wide, and weighs almost 35kgs. It has a lid and is split along the middle due to the expansion of butter over time.

The butter has turned white and is now adipocere, the same sort of fat that is usually found on well-preserved bodies of people or animals found in bogs.

"It's rare to find a barrel as intact as that," explained National Museum keeper Padraig Clancy. "Especially with the lid intact, and attached. It's a really fine example."

Experts say the butter has probably been the harvest of a community which was put in the bog for practical reasons, rather than ritual.

"There are accounts dating back to the 1850's with people used to wash their cattle once a year in the bog and then put some butter back into the bog. It was piseogary," said Clancy explained, adding that the butter was usually "stolen by the following week!”

"It's open to interpretation, but we're inclined to think that 3,000 years ago they were just storing it."

The Conservation Department staff is preparing it to be soaked in a wax-like solution which preserves it, Leinster Leader reported.

TE/HGH