It’s Greek to Me

This comes from Today’s Chemist AT Work (November, 2003).

In a bizarre story of ancient archaeology meets modern molecular biology, scientists have recently announced in the Journal of Unconvincing New Knowledge that they have found evidence that the ancient, pre-Socratic Greeks of the Mycenaean Era may actually have had an advanced, if incomplete, knowledge of the genetic components of life.

What were once thought to be the random carvings of illegible names on small pottery shards, discovered near the remnants of the city of Marathon, now appear to be the preliminary outlines of the bond structure of three of the nucleotides — one purine and two pyrimidines – that make up DNA.  Because of their scratchy nature, they had been ignored for decades, but a recent visit by an undergraduate chemistry student to a museum started the ball rolling for one of the strangest stories in modern science.

For those interested in reading the original article, it can be found at the following reference:  Fink & Wignall, Aegean Sea [A, G, ‘n’, C] Discovered on the East Coast of Greece.  J. U. N. K. 2003, 7, 666.