Watermelons were a favourite treat for ancient Egyptians who ate domesticated versions of the fruit with sweet, red flesh 3,500 years ago
- Discovery came after DNA was extracted from fruit's leaves dating back to 1876
- Scientists found genome sequence which affected cucurbitacins and lycopene
- An ancient picture also shows the green and red-coloured fruit
Like most modern-day people, ancient Egyptians enjoyed a diet that contained a summertime staple: watermelons.
New evidence shows the North African community would feast on the colourful fruit as temperatures soared some 3,500 years ago.
Interestingly, they resembled today's domesticated varieties, which contain sweet, red flesh and black pips - rather than the wild type, which is small and sour.
The discovery came after DNA was extracted from the fruit's leaves upon their discovery near an ancient tomb in 1876.
Modern tastes: New evidence shows the North African community would feast on the colourful fruit as temperatures soared some 3,500 years ago
The authors of the study say in the paper: 'The plant we sequenced had red-fleshed and sweet fruits and that New Kingdom Egyptians were cultivating domesticated watermelons.'
Leaves of an ancient watermelon were obtained by famed botanist Joseph Hooker (and friend of Charles Darwin) in the 19th century.
Earlier this year, his office at London's Kew Gardens gave a small sample of them to Susanne Renner, a botanist from the University of Munich.
Her former colleague Guillaume Chomicki, now at the University of Oxford, found a partial genome sequence. This showed that the melons were the sort we'd purchase from a high-street supermarket.
According to a report in New Scientist, one of them controlled the production of cucurbitacins, which account for the wild variety's tart taste.
The other gene stopped lycopene – the pigment that makes tomatoes red – turn into another (colourless) substance.
Unfortunately, this data doesn't tell us the size and shape of the watermelons, but one ancient Egyptian image suggests it was almost identical to the ones we enjoy today.
It's believed they were farmed in the Sudan region before trending northwards along the river Nile.
The data was published in journal Biorxiv.
Proof that we shared the same summertime diet? This ancient Egyptian image suggests the watermelons they ate were almost identical to the ones we enjoy today
Food for thought: A second ancient image also depicts the presence of a watermelon