Honey is, first and foremost, a sugar. Sugars are hygroscopic, a term that means they contain very little water in their natural state but can readily suck in moisture if left unsealed. The first comes from the chemical make-up of honey itself. The answer is as complex as honey’s flavor–you don’t get a food source with no expiration date without a whole slew of factors working in perfect harmony.

Which raises the question–what exactly makes honey such a special food? Moreover, honey’s longevity lends it other properties– mainly medicinal–that other resilient foods don’t have. But there’s something about honey it can remain preserved in a completely edible form, and while you wouldn’t want to chow down on raw rice or straight salt, one could ostensibly dip into a thousand year old jar of honey and enjoy it, without preparation, as if it were a day old. There are a few other examples of foods that keep–indefinitely–in their raw state: salt, sugar, dried rice are a few. Through millennia, the archeologists discover, the food remains unspoiled, an unmistakable testament to the eternal shelf-life of honey. Modern archeologists, excavating ancient Egyptian tombs, have often found something unexpected amongst the tombs’ artifacts: pots of honey, thousands of years old, and yet still preserved. What is it that makes honey such a special food?

Just cause 3 ancient tomb